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The Executioner's Song

Norman Mailer · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

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Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

Vincent Bugliosi, Curt Gentry · 676 pages

Prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial, Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the twentieth century: the cold-blooded Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by Charles Manson and four of his followers. What motivated Manson in his seemingly mindless selection of victims, and what was his hold over the young women who obeyed his orders? H

True CrimeSprawling EpicPrisonViolent
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In Cold Blood

Truman Capote · 343 pages

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

True CrimePrisonClassicsViolent
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The Onion Field

Joseph Wambaugh

True CrimePrisonViolentNonfiction
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Bronson

Charles Bronson · 351 pages

True CrimePrisonViolentNonfiction
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Night

Elie Wiesel · 126 pages

PrisonSparse ProseClassicsNonfiction
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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

True CrimePrisonViolentNonfiction
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Hard Rain Falling

Don Carpenter · 308 pages

Don Carpenter's Hard Rain Falling is a tough-as-nails account of being down and out, but never down for good - a Dostoyevskian tale of crime, punishment, and the pursuit of an ever-elusive redemption. The novel follows the adventures of Jack Levitt, an orphaned teenager living off his wits in the fleabag hotels and seedy pool halls of Portland, Oregon. Jack befriends Billy Lancing, a young black r

PrisonSparse ProseViolentClassics
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A Million Little Pieces

James Frey · 430 pages

"The most lacerating tale of drug addiction since William S. Burroughs' Junky." --The Boston Globe"Again and again, the book delivers recollections that leave the reader winded and unsteady. James Frey's staggering recovery memoir could well be seen as the final word on the topic."--San Francisco Chronicle"A brutal, beautifully written memoir."--The Denver Post"Gripping . . . A great story . . . Y

Sparse ProsePrisonNonfictionViolent
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Pimp: The Story of My Life

Iceberg Slim · 317 pages

This is the story of Iceberg Slim's life, as he saw, felt, tasted, and smelled it. A trip through hell by the one man who lived to tell the tale. The dangers of jail, addiction and death that are still all too familiar.

PrisonTrue CrimeViolentClassics
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In the Belly of the Beast: Letters From Prison

Jack Henry Abbott · 166 pages

This book collects Abbott's correspondence from prison with Norman Mailer, who provides an introduction. Abbott was a convict who had served the bulk of his life in various prisons across the country. The book is a lauded entry in the repertoire of prison literature.

True CrimePrisonViolentNonfiction
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For the Term of His Natural Life

Marcus Clarke · 492 pages

First published in 1874, a powerful tale of an Australian penal settlement, which originally appeared in serial form in a Melbourne paper.The story of Rufus Dawes, a young man transported for a murder which he did not commit. The harsh and inhumane treatment handed out to the convicts, some of whom were transported for minor crimes, is vividly conveyed. The novel was based on research by the autho

PrisonSprawling EpicViolentClassics
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Breakout

Richard Stark · 309 pages

Parker's back in jail, but not just any old jail; it's the correctional center, where people without bail wait before and during their trial. So Parker's first order of business is to build a network among these cons and break on through to the other side.

Sparse ProsePrisonViolentMale Lead
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Schindler's List

Thomas Keneally · 429 pages

In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour. This is the extraordinary story of Oskar Schindler, who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland and who was transformed by the war into a man with a mission, a compassionate angel of mer

PrisonSprawling EpicClassicsViolent
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Mr. Nice

Howard Marks · 466 pages

THE BOOK: During the mid 1980's Howard Marks had forty three aliases, eighty nine phone lines and owned twenty five companies throughout the world. Whether bars, recording studios or offshore banks, all were money laundering vehicles serving the core activity: dope dealingMarks began to deal small amounts of hashish while doing a postgraduate philosopy course at Oxford and soon he was moving much

True CrimePrisonNonfictionMale Lead
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Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker

Kevin D. Mitnick, William L. Simon, Steve Wozniak · 413 pages

Kevin Mitnick was the most elusive computer break-in artist in history. He accessed computers and networks at the world's biggest companies -- and however fast the authorities were, Mitnick was faster, sprinting through phone switches, computer systems, and cellular networks. He spent years skipping through cyberspace, always three steps ahead and labeled unstoppable. But for Kevin, hacking wasn't

True CrimePrisonNonfictionMale Lead
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Andersonville

MacKinlay Kantor · 767 pages

"The greatest of our Civil War novels." - The New York Times The 1955 Pulitzer Prize winning story of the Andersonville Fortress and its use as a concentration camp-like prison by the South during the Civil War.

Sprawling EpicPrisonClassicsViolent
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The Blood Mirror

Brent Weeks · 704 pages

"The Seven Satrapies have collapsed into four-and those are falling before the White King's armies. Gavin Guile, ex-emperor, ex-Prism, ex-galley slave, formerly the one man who might have averted war, is now lost, broken, and trapped in a prison crafted by his own hands to hold a great magical genius. But Gavin has no magic at all. Worse, in this prison, Gavin may not be alone. Kip Guile will make

PrisonSprawling EpicViolentMale Lead
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The Power of One

Bryce Courtenay · 518 pages

Follows Peekay, a white British boy in South Africa during World War II, between the ages of five and eleven, as he survives an abusive boarding school and goes on to succeed in life and the boxing ring, with help from a chicken, a boxer, a pianist, black African prisoners, and many others.

PrisonSprawling EpicViolentClassics
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Shantaram

Gregory David Roberts · 936 pages

Un prófugo de una prisión de alta seguridad en Australia y llega a Bombay dejando tras de sí toda su vida anterior: una ex - esposa y una hija de la cual ha perdido su custodia. Su nombre es Lin, pero pronto será conocido como Shantaram, el hombre de la paz de Dios. En Bombay conoce a Prabaker, su guía hindú, poseedor de una eterna sonrisa que le hace ganarse a todo el mundo. Prabaker le enseña a

PrisonSprawling EpicViolentMale Lead
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Hard Time: Banged Up Abroad Raving Arizona

Shaun Attwood · 345 pages

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The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Malcolm X, Alex Haley · 484 pages

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Monster

Walter Dean Myers · 281 pages

While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.

PrisonSparse ProseViolentMale Lead
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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn · 174 pages

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Iv

Sparse ProsePrisonClassicsMale Lead
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Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began

Art Spiegelman · 135 pages

"Acclaimed as a quiet triumph and a brutally moving work of art, the first volume of Art Spiegelman's Mausintroduced readers to Vladek Spieglman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a cartoonist trying to come to terms with his father, his father's terrifying story, and History itself. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), succeeds perfectly in shocking us out o

PrisonSparse ProseNonfictionClassics

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