Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

Peter Matthiessen · 646 pages

An investigative account of the fatal shootout between FBI agents and American Indians in 1975. On a hot June morning in 1975, a desperate shoot-out between FBI agents and Native Americans near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, left an Indian and two federal agents dead. Four members of the American Indian Movement were indicted on murder charges, and one, Leonard Peltier, was convicted and is now serv

Tall Man: The Death of Doomadgee

Chloe Hooper · 267 pages

In November 2004, in the small township of Palm Island in the far north of Queensland, Detective Hurley arrested Cameron Doomadgee for swearing at him. Doomadgee was drunk. A few hours later he was dead, his liver (according to the inquest) so badly damaged it was almost severed.

A Death in Belmont

Sebastian Junger · 288 pages

In the spring of 1963, the quiet suburb of Belmont, Massachusetts, is rocked by a shocking sex murder that exactly fits the pattern of the Boston Strangler. Sensing a break in the case that has paralyzed the city of Boston, the police track down a black man, Roy Smith, who cleaned the victim's house that day and left a receipt with his name on the kitchen counter. Smith is hastily convicted of the

The Central Park Five: A Chronicle of a City Wilding

Sarah Burns · 240 pages

An in-depth account of one of New York City's most notorious crimes. On April 20, 1989, the body of a woman is discovered in Central Park, her skull badly smashed. Within days, five black and Latino teenagers confess to her rape and beating. The ensuing media frenzy and hysterical public reaction is extraordinary. The young men are tried and convicted as adults, despite the fact that the teens qui

Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong

Raymond Bonner

The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town

John Grisham · 360 pages

John Grisham's first work of nonfiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller yet. In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A's, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory. Six years later he was

El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency

Ioan Grillo · 321 pages

"The world has watched stunned at the bloodshed in Mexico. Forty thousand murdered since 2006; police chiefs shot within hours of taking office; mass graves comparable to those of civil wars; car bombs shattering storefronts; headless corpses heaped in town squares. And it is all because a few Americans are getting high. Or is it? The United States throws Black Hawk helicopters, DEA assistance, an

They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement

Wesley Lowery · 256 pages

Conducting hundreds of interviews during the course of over one year reporting on the ground, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery traveled from Ferguson, Missouri, to Cleveland, Ohio; Charleston, South Carolina; and Baltimore, Maryland; and then back to Ferguson to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise neglected, corners of America today. In an effort to grasp the magnitud

Busted: A Tale of Corruption and Betrayal in the City of Brotherly Love

Wendy Ruderman, Barbara Laker

Zeitoun

Dave Eggers · 352 pages

From Goodreads: The true story of one family, caught between America’s two biggest policy disasters: the war on terror and the response to Hurricane Katrina. Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun run a house-painting business in New Orleans. In August of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina approaches, Kathy evacuates with their four young children, leaving Zeitoun to watch over the business. In the days followi

All God's Children

Fox Butterfield · 389 pages

A startling examination of an American heritage of violence - a legacy from the pre-Revolutionary white rural South to today's urban America - that helps answer the question of how America became so violent. The tradition is reflected in the experiences of one black family, the Boskets, from the days of slavery to the present. This tragic family history culminates in the twentieth century with th

The Devil & Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness & Obsession

David Grann · 352 pages

Acclaimed New Yorker writer and author of the breakout debut bestseller The Lost City of Z, David Grann offers a collection of spellbinding narrative journalism. Whether he's reporting on the infiltration of the murderous Aryan Brotherhood into the U.S. prison system, tracking down a chameleon con artist in Europe, or riding in a cyclone- tossed skiff with a scientist hunting the elusive giant squ

Whitey Bulger: America's Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice

Kevin Cullen, Shelley Murphy · 503 pages

Chronicles the criminal career of the gangster who provided a protection racket against drug lords, ran illegal gambling, robbed banks, and served as an informant for the FBI until going into hiding for sixteen years. Raised in a South Boston housing project, James "Whitey" Bulger became the most wanted fugitive of his generation. In this story the authors follow his criminal career from teenage

LAbyrinth: A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the Implication of Death Row Records' Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal

Randall Sullivan · 336 pages

Los Angeles has one of the nation's most controversial police departments. In the fall of 1998, still reeling from the Rodney King and O.J. Simpson debacles, the LAPD took a far more damaging hit when officer Rafael Perez implicated over seventy fellow officers -- members of the elite Rampart street-crimes unit -- in a conspiracy of robbery, brutality, drug dealing, false imprisonment, and alleged

Murder in Mississippi

John Safran · 384 pages

WINNER OF THE NED KELLY AWARD FOR BEST TRUE CRIME *'Say, John Safran,' he says. 'Yes?' I say. 'I can get you killed from right behind this door, man. Real talk.' 'You can get me killed from behind your door?' 'Real talk,' he says. 'I can get your ass killed from behind this door, if you playin'.* Taking us places only John Safran can, *Murder in Mississippi* paints an engrossing, revealing p

Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three

Mara Leveritt · 432 pages

Based on a true story, this edition of Devil's Knot will tie-in to a major motion picture starring Academy Award winners Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth. This riveting portrait of a small Arkansas town recounts the all-too-true story of a brutal triple murder and the eighteen-year imprisonment of three innocent teenagers. For weeks in 1993, after the grisly murders of three eight-year-old boys,

Aarushi

Avirook Sen · 302 pages

Black Mass

Dick Lehr, Gerard O'Neill · 400 pages

Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America

Jill Leovy · 384 pages

The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas

Anand Giridharadas · 327 pages

Days after 9/11, an avowed "American terrorist" named Mark Stroman, seeking revenge, walked into the Dallas minimart where Raisuddin Bhuiyan, a former Bangladesh Air Force officer, has found temporary work and shoots him, nearly killing him. Giridharadas traces the making of these two men, Stroman and Bhuiyan, and of their fateful encounter, following them as they rebuild shattered lives. Ten year

Thomas Quick: The Making of a Serial Killer

Hannes Rastam · 563 pages

'I wonder what you'd think of me if you found out that I've done something really serious'. So begin the confessions of Thomas Quick - Scandinavia's most notorious serial killer. In 1992, behind the barbed wire fence of a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane, Thomas Quick confessed to the murder of an 11-year-old boy who had been missing for 12 years. Over the next nine years, Quick conf

Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter

James S. Hirsch · 363 pages

Chronicles Rubin Carter's twenty-year imprisonment, discussing why he was accused of three murders he did not commit, how racial issues affected the outcome of his trial, how he earned the support of celebrities, and why a group of Canadians decided to help him prove his innocence.

Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial

Rabia Chaudry · 416 pages

"In early 2000, Adnan Syed was convicted and sentenced to life plus thirty years for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, a high school senior in Baltimore, Maryland. Syed has maintained his innocence, and Rabia Chaudry, a family friend, has always believed him. By 2013, after almost all appeals had been exhausted, Rabia contacted Sarah Koenig, a producer at This American Life, in hopes of

Death in Perugia: The Definitive Account of the Meredith Kercher Case from Her Murder to the Acquittal of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox

John Follain · 448 pages