SJPL Picks: True CrimeLike this list

54 items

• Anatomy of a Con Artist

  the 14 Red Flags to Spot Scammers, Grifters, and Thieves

  Walton, Johnathan,

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  Victim-turned-investigator Johnathan Walton, host of the Queen of the Con podcast, shares 14 red flags to use to spot con artists, drawing from hundreds of real-life cases and his personal mission to bring scammers to justice.

• The Idaho Four

  An American Tragedy

  Patterson, James, 1947-

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  The murders of four innocent college students attending the University of Idaho left us all with so many questions. Now, after more than 300 interviews, James Patterson and journalist Vicky Ward finally have some answers. We know what it was like to…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Little Bosses Everywhere

  How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America

  Read, Bridget, 1990-

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  Bridget Read tells the story of multilevel marketing in full for the first time, from postwar California, where a failed salesman started a vitamin business, through the religious suburbs of Michigan, where the industry built its political…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Home of the Happy

  a Murder on the Cajun Prairie

  LaHaye Fontenot, Jordan, 1996-

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  On January 16, 1983, Aubrey LaHaye's body was found floating in the Bayou Nezpique. His kidnapping ten days before sparked a manhunt. But his descendants would hear the story in whispers of the dreadful day the FBI set out on horseback to search for…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Story of a Murder

  the Wives, the Mistress, and Dr. Crippen /

  Rubenhold, Hallie,

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  When Belle Elmore’s remains were discovered in the basement of London’s 39 Hilldrop Crescent in July 1910, the larger-than-life vaudevillian performer was launched into stardom she never achieved on the stage. Story of a Murder provides an…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Code Name: Pale Horse

  How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis

  Payne, Scott (FBI agent),

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  For readers of The MAGA Diaries and Hate in the Homeland , an eye-opening and crucial true story of one man risking his life to infiltrate the most dangerous neo-Nazi group in the United States. When Scott Payne was growing up, he never envisioned…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Man Nobody Killed

  Life, Death, and Art in Michael Stewart's New York

  Green, Elon,

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  At twenty-five years old, Michael Stewart was a young Black aspiring artist, deejay, and model, looking to make a name for himself in the vibrant downtown art scene of the early 1980’s New York City. On September 15, 1983, he was brutally beaten by…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Scout Camp

  Sex, Death, and Secret Societies Inside the Boy Scouts of America

  Renner, James, 1978-

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  In the summer of 1995, at the largest Boy Scout camp in Ohio, a night of sexual violence ended with one counselor dead and another hospitalized. The death was ruled “accidental.” It wouldn’t be the last death associated with Seven Ranges…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Mother Next Door

  Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy

  Dunlap, Andrea,

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  An investigation of Munchausen by Proxy (MBP) through narratives and expert insights, exploring the disturbing dynamics between mothers and their children facing fabricated illnesses; following three high-stakes investigations, they reveal the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Secret History of the Rape Kit

  a True Crime Story

  Kennedy, Pagan, 1962-

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  The idea came to Marty Goddard in 1971. She was working at a crisis hotline, haunted by the stories of survivors and plagued by two principle Why were so many predators getting away with crimes? And, how do we stop them? In the coming years, Marty…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The House of My Mother

  a Daughter's Quest for Freedom

  Franke, Shari,

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  From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing.

• Blood and the Badge

  the Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation

  Cannell, Michael,

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  No episode in NYPD history surpasses the depravities of Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, two decorated detectives who covertly acted as mafia informants and paid assassins in the Scorsese world of 1980s Brooklyn. For more than ten years,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Too Young to Kill

  a True Story of Teen Bullying, Torment, and Murder

  Phelps, M. William,

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  An investigative journalist recounts the harrowing true story of 16-year-old Adrianne Reynolds, who was murdered by peers in East Moline, Illinois, after seeking acceptance in a Juggalo culture, illuminating the disturbing issues of bullying and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Last Kilo

  Willy Falcon and the Cocaine Empire That Seduced America

  English, T. J., 1957-

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  From true-crime legend T. J. English, the epic, behind-the-scenes saga of “Los Muchachos,” one of the most successful cocaine trafficking organizations in American history—a story of glitz, glamour, and organized crime set against 1980’s Miami.

• Framed

  Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions

  Grisham, John,

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  Exposes ten harrowing tales of innocent Americans unjustly found guilty and convicted of crimes they didn't commit, shedding light on the flaws within the legal system that led to their imprisonment and the relentless battles for exoneration that…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Interference

  the Inside Story of Trump, Russia, and the Mueller Investigation

  Zebley, Aaron,

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  The behind-the-scenes story of the investigation that shook America to its core--the Mueller investigation that presented the evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election--as told by Robert Mueller's closest colleagues,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Barn

  the Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi

  Thompson, Wright,

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  Recounting one of the most notorious and consequential killings in American history--the 1955 murder and torture of Emmett Till, a Black boy barely in his teens, in a barn in Money, Mississippi--this story about property, money, power and white…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• I Am on the Hit List

  a Journalist's Murder and the Rise of Autocracy in India

  Romig, Rollo,

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  Investigates the chilling 2017 murder of female journalist Gauri Lankesh in India who was silenced for fighting the decline of democracy, exposing a web of extremism, corruption, organized crime and the fight for free speech around the world.

• A Devil Went Down to Georgia

  Race, Power, Privilege, and the Murder of Lita McClinton

  Landau, Deb Miller,

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  The 1987 murder of Lita McClinton Sullivan sent shockwaves through the affluent Atlanta suburb of Buckhead, Georgia like few other crimes before it. The neighborhood was simply not the kind of place where women were gunned down in cold blood in…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Devil Behind the Badge

  the Horrifying Twelve Days of the Border Patrol Serial Killer

  Jervis, Rick,

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  A Pulitzer Prize-winning USA Today journalist tells the gripping story of a U.S. Border Patrol agent--and family man--who violently executed four sex workers, shocking the small border town of Laredo, and along the way, raises serious questions…Read moreRead more of this annotation