Best Murder & Mayhem True Accounts Books of 2025

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.. On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.. But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death—for whomever the court found guilty could hang.. The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann’s recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O’Brian, his portrayal of the castaways’ desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann’s work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.

JFK and the Unspeakable is a gripping account of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the reasons behind it. Author James W. Douglass explores how JFK's shift towards peace threatened the power and influence of military and intelligence agencies in the US, leading to a conspiracy to assassinate him and a cover-up. The book provides an in-depth look at the Cuban Missile Crisis, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the events leading up to the President's death. It has been praised by notable figures like Oliver Stone and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for its well-documented and convincing portrayal. JFK and the Unspeakable is a must-read for anyone interested in US history and politics.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI is a haunting true-life murder mystery that uncovers one of the most monstrous crimes in American history. The book unveils the mysterious deaths of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, who were once the richest people per capita in the world, after oil was discovered beneath their land. The author, David Grann, masterfully spins a many-layered mystery that is both disturbing and riveting. The book has received numerous accolades and is a must-read for fans of true-crime thrillers.

A #1 Wall Street Journal, Amazon Charts, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller.#1 New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen’s shocking and empowering true-crime story of three sisters determined to survive their mother’s house of horrors.After more than a decade, when sisters Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek hear the word mom, it claws like an eagle’s talons, triggering memories that have been their secret since childhood. Until now.For years, behind the closed doors of their farmhouse in Raymond, Washington, their sadistic mother, Shelly, subjected her girls to unimaginable abuse, degradation, torture, and psychic terrors. Through it all, Nikki, Sami, and Tori developed a defiant bond that made them far less vulnerable than Shelly imagined. Even as others were drawn into their mother’s dark and perverse web, the sisters found the strength and courage to escape an escalating nightmare that culminated in multiple murders.Harrowing and heartrending, If You Tell is a survivor’s story of absolute evil―and the freedom and justice that Nikki, Sami, and Tori risked their lives to fight for. Sisters forever, victims no more, they found a light in the darkness that made them the resilient women they are today―loving, loved, and moving on.

A journalist's twenty-year fascination with the Manson murders leads to shocking new revelations about the FBI's involvement in this riveting reassessment of an infamous case in American history.. . Over two grim nights in Los Angeles, the young followers of Charles Manson murdered seven people, including the actress Sharon Tate, then eight months pregnant. With no mercy and seemingly no motive, the Manson Family followed their leader's every order -- their crimes lit a flame of paranoia across the nation, spelling the end of the sixties. Manson became one of history's most infamous criminals, his name forever attached to an era when charlatans mixed with prodigies, free love was as possible as brainwashing, and utopia -- or dystopia -- was just an acid trip away.. . Twenty years ago, when journalist Tom O'Neill was reporting a magazine piece about the murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Then he unearthed shocking evidence of a cover-up behind the "official" story, including police carelessness, legal misconduct, and potential surveillance by intelligence agents. When a tense interview with Vincent Bugliosi -- prosecutor of the Manson Family and author of Helter Skelter -- turned a friendly source into a nemesis, O'Neill knew he was onto something. But every discovery brought more questions:. . Who were Manson's real friends in Hollywood, and how far would they go to hide their ties?Why didn't law enforcement, including Manson's own parole officer, act on their many chances to stop him?And how did Manson -- an illiterate ex-con -- turn a group of peaceful hippies into remorseless killers?. . O'Neill's quest for the truth led him from reclusive celebrities to seasoned spies, from San Francisco's summer of love to the shadowy sites of the CIA's mind-control experiments, on a trail rife with shady cover-ups and suspicious coincidences. The product of two decades of reporting, hundreds of new interviews, and dozens of never-before-seen documents from the LAPD, the FBI, and the CIA, Chaos mounts an argument that could be, according to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Steven Kay, strong enough to overturn the verdicts on the Manson murders. This is a book that overturns our understanding of a pivotal time in American history..

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death.. “Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramatic effect of a novel .... It doesn’t hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction.” —The New York Times. Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction.Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. . Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.. The Devil in the White City draws the reader into the enchantment of the Guilded Age, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story by John Berendt is a true-crime book that reads like a novel. In this book, Berendt tells the story of a landmark murder case that took place in Savannah, Georgia. He skillfully interweaves the unpredictable twists and turns of the murder case with a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in Savannah, revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. This book is a sublime and seductive reading experience, and it has become a modern classic in the true-crime genre.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a true crime novel that reconstructs the horrific murder of the Clutter family in 1959 in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas. Capote's writing style blends journalism and literature to create a mesmerizing work that not only details the crime and investigation but also delves into the nature of American violence. The book is a masterpiece of creative nonfiction that continues to captivate readers with its vivid imagery and haunting portrayal of the killers. In Cold Blood is a must-read for anyone interested in true crime and the art of storytelling.

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession is a collection of gripping true crime mysteries written by David Grann. The book takes readers on a journey around the world, exploring the fixations of rogues and heroes that lead them into deadly circumstances. Grann's exhaustive research and superb storytelling make for a titillating read. Each of the dozen intricately crafted accounts carries the spice of intrigue and the momentum of a search. Overall, this book is a must-read for true crime enthusiasts who enjoy bizarre and fascinating stories that are stranger than fiction.