Discover Women-Written True Crime
Although it often feels like the cultural obsession with true crime is very specific to our time, audiences have been fascinated by the dark and macabre for as long as society has had crime and punishment. That said, true crime has evolved significantly, and in recent years we’ve seen a wider range in the tales told, as well as more women-centered storytelling. Since the Queen of True Crime Ann Rule transformed the genre with her first book, The Stranger Beside Me, published in 1980, more women are taking to true crime, and readers have been treated to stories with more variety than every before, from the time periods and places explored to the evil deeds themselves. Whether you’re dipping a toe into the genre or consider yourself a true aficionado, this list of true crime books written by women has something for everyone, from classic crime stories to twists on the traditional genre.
Books You Should Know About
Crimes of the Centuries by Amber Hunt
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What better way to kick off our list than with a deep dive into the history of the crimes and cases that have shaped our fascination with the genre. Covering everything from the most infamous to lesser-known stories, this book is a must-have for true crime fans. This book of cases also earned a starred review from Library Journal.
From the publisher:
When asked why true crime is so in vogue, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Amber Hunt always has the same answer: it’s no hotter than it’s always been. Crimes and trials have captured American consciousness since the Salem Witch Trials in the seventeenth century. And these cases over the centuries have fundamentally changed our society and shifted our legal system, resulting in the laws we have today and setting the stage for new rights and protections. From the first recorded murder trial led by the first legal dream team, to one of the earliest uses of DNA, these cases will fascinate.
The League of Lady Poisoners by Lisa Perrin, foreword by Holly Frey and Maria Trimarchi
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Historically true crime has centered around men as the criminals, but this one is all about the ladies. This gorgeously illustrated book will introduce readers to infamous women throughout history from all over the world, united by their penchant for poison. Exploring their lives and the events that led to their notoriety, this carefully researched work, which earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly, compiles compelling stories of women with a range of backgrounds and motives.
From the publisher:
This riveting and well-researched volume by Lisa Perrin weaves together the stories of more than twenty-five accused women poisoners, exploring the circumstances and skill sets that led them to lives of crime.
You might find yourself rooting for some of them—like Sally Bassett, who helped poison her granddaughter’s enslavers in Bermuda, or Giulia Tofana, who sold her name-brand concoction to women wanting to be rid of their abusive (or otherwise undesirable) husbands. Other stories, though—including that of Yiya Murano, one of Argentina’s most notorious swindlers and serial killers, or the terrifying Nurse Jane Toppan—may prove less palatable.
Organized into thematic chapters based on the women’s motives, the book also includes an illustrated primer that delves into the origins and effects of common poisons throughout history, as well as a foreword by Holly Frey and Maria Trimarchi, creators and hosts of the podcast Criminalia. It is a treat for true crime fans, feminist history buffs, and any curious readers fascinated by the more macabre side of human nature.
The Ghosts of Eden Park by Karen Abbott
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Do you like your true crime with a side of glamour? Look no further than this page-turner with all the Gatsby vibes. An ID Book Club selection with a starred review from Publishers Weekly, this epic story of a successful bootlegger and a murder that shocked Jazz Age America is perfect for fans of historical true crime looking for scandal, drama, and suspense. The book was also named one of the ten best history books of the year by Smithsonian.
From the publisher:
In the early days of Prohibition, long before Al Capone became a household name, a German immigrant named George Remus quits practicing law and starts trafficking whiskey. Within two years he’s a multi-millionaire. The press calls him “King of the Bootleggers,” writing breathless stories about the Gatsby-esque events he and his glamorous second wife, Imogene, host at their Cincinnati mansion, with party favors ranging from diamond jewelry for the men to brand-new cars for the women. By the summer of 1921, Remus owns 35 percent of all the liquor in the United States.
Pioneering prosecutor Mabel Walker Willebrandt is determined to bring him down. Willebrandt’s bosses at the Justice Department hired her right out of law school, assuming she’d pose no real threat to the cozy relationship they maintain with Remus. Eager to prove them wrong, she dispatches her best investigator, Franklin Dodge, to look into his empire. It’s a decision with deadly consequences. With the fledgling FBI on the case, Remus is quickly imprisoned for violating the Volstead Act. Her husband behind bars, Imogene begins an affair with Dodge. Together, they plot to ruin Remus, sparking a bitter feud that soon reaches the highest levels of government—and that can only end in murder.
Combining deep historical research with novelistic flair, The Ghosts of Eden Park is the unforgettable, stranger-than-fiction story of a rags-to-riches entrepreneur and a long-forgotten heroine, of the excesses and absurdities of the Jazz Age, and of the infinite human capacity to deceive.
The Haunting of Alma Fielding by Kate Summerscale
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Try some true crime with a paranormal twist in this sensational “true ghost story” of a woman haunted. Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and shortlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize, this equally dark and dazzling story will keep readers up all night! It’s sure to appeal to fans of ghost stories and psychological thrillers alike.
From the publisher:
London, 1938. In the suburbs of the city, a young housewife has become the eye in a storm of chaos. In Alma Fielding’s modest home, china flies off the shelves and eggs fly through the air; stolen jewelry appears on her fingers, white mice crawl out of her handbag, beetles appear from under her gloves; in the middle of a car journey, a turtle materializes on her lap. The culprit is incorporeal. As Alma cannot call the police, she calls the papers instead.
After the sensational story headlines the news, Nandor Fodor, a Hungarian ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research, arrives to investigate the poltergeist. But when he embarks on his scrupulous investigation, he discovers that the case is even stranger than it seems.
By unravelling Alma’s peculiar history, Fodor finds a different and darker type of haunting, a tale of trauma, alienation, loss and revenge. He comes to believe that Alma’s past has bled into her present, her mind into her body. There are no words for processing her experience, so it comes to possess her. As the threat of a world war looms, and as Fodor’s obsession with the case deepens, Alma becomes ever more disturbed.
With characteristic rigor and insight, Kate Summerscale brilliantly captures the rich atmosphere of a haunting that transforms into a very modern battle between the supernatural and the subconscious.
Hearts of Darkness by Jana Monroe
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For all the Criminal Minds and Mindhunter fans out there, this one is for you. This engrossing memoir details Jana Monroe’s trailblazing career as one of the first female profilers of the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit. Described as one of the most influential women to serve in the FBI, Monroe dedicated her life to hunting down serial killers. If that’s not cool enough, she was even the real-life inspiration for Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs.
From the publisher:
Jana Monroe was no ordinary cop. One of the first analysts—and, at the time, the only female agent—in the world-renowned FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit at Quantico, she consulted on more than 850 homicide cases, including infamous serial killers Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Edmund Kemper, and Aileen Wuornos. Monroe was also the model for Clarice Starling in the movie version of The Silence of the Lambs; she even helped train Jodie Foster for her Oscar-winning role. Monroe’s later years found her dealing with the aftermath of Columbine, heading up the FBI’s post-9/11 investigation in Las Vegas, and much more.
In Hearts of Darkness, Monroe steps out from the shadows to tell the story of her astonishing life in shaping law enforcement and intelligence analysis. Monroe explores the cases that have stayed with her, breaking down victimology, offering new insight into the minds of serial killers, and discussing the psychological toll of the job and the obstacles she faced as a woman in the male-dominated Bureau. This is a gripping, sometimes gruesome, and always remarkable memoir of an unparalleled life and career spent chasing the monsters among us.
Yellow Bird by Sierra Crane Murdoch
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This Pulitzer Prize finalist is a work of literary journalism detailing the riveting true story of a murder on an Indian reservation with a determined protagonist who becomes obsessed with solving it. With starred reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, this true crime/environmental saga/family drama breaks the mold of typical true crime. Now in the works to be developed as a Paramount+ original series, the book is also the winner of the Oregon Book Award, was nominated for the Edgar Award, and was named one of the best books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review.
From the publisher:
When Lissa Yellow Bird was released from prison in 2009, she found her home, the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, transformed by the Bakken oil boom. In her absence, the landscape had been altered beyond recognition, her tribal government swayed by corporate interests, and her community burdened by a surge in violence and addiction. Three years later, when Lissa learned that a young white oil worker, Kristopher “KC” Clarke, had disappeared from his reservation worksite, she became particularly concerned. No one knew where Clarke had gone, and few people were actively looking for him.
Yellow Bird traces Lissa’s steps as she obsessively hunts for clues to Clarke’s disappearance. She navigates two worlds—that of her own tribe, changed by its newfound wealth, and that of the non-Native oilmen, down on their luck, who have come to find work on the heels of the economic recession. Her pursuit of Clarke is also a pursuit of redemption, as Lissa atones for her own crimes and reckons with generations of trauma. Yellow Bird is an exquisitely written, masterfully reported story about a search for justice and a remarkable portrait of a complex woman who is smart, funny, eloquent, compassionate, and—when it serves her cause—manipulative. Drawing on eight years of immersive investigation, Sierra Crane Murdoch has produced a profound examination of the legacy of systematic violence inflicted on a tribal nation and a tale of extraordinary healing.
Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey
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One of Barack Obama’s Favorites Books of 2020, this haunting and personal memoir details a daughter’s reckoning with the unthinkable murder of her mother at the hands of her stepfather and blends family trauma with a poet’s coming of age story. Equal parts beautiful and devastating, Trethewey has created an intimate portrait that takes the true crime genre to new heights.
From the publisher:
At age nineteen, Natasha Trethewey had her world turned upside down when her former stepfather shot and killed her mother. Grieving and still new to adulthood, she confronted the twin pulls of life and death in the aftermath of unimaginable trauma and now explores the way this experience lastingly shaped the artist she became.
With penetrating insight and a searing voice that moves from the wrenching to the elegiac, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Natasha Trethewey explores this profound experience of pain, loss, and grief as an entry point into understanding the tragic course of her mother’s life and the way her own life has been shaped by a legacy of fierce love and resilience. Moving through her mother’s history in the deeply segregated South and through her own girlhood as a “child of miscegenation” in Mississippi, Trethewey plumbs her sense of dislocation and displacement in the lead-up to the harrowing crime that took place on Memorial Drive in Atlanta in 1985.
Memorial Drive is a compelling and searching look at a shared human experience of sudden loss and absence but also a piercing glimpse at the enduring ripple effects of white racism and domestic abuse. Animated by unforgettable prose and inflected by a poet’s attention to language, this is a luminous, urgent, and visceral memoir from one of our most important contemporary writers and thinkers.
Trail of the Lost by Andrea Lankford
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We’ve all heard the horror stories from coast to coast of hikers who go missing and are never heard from again. This book follows the author’s determined quest to find hikers missing from the Pacific Crest Trail. Andrea Lankford looks at hiker culture and explores the awe and danger of the natural world in this book that blends memoir with adventure story. Haunting and suspenseful, this book is a must for anyone looking for atmospheric chills.
From the publisher:
As a park ranger with the National Park Service’s law enforcement team, Andrea Lankford led search and rescue missions in some of the most beautiful (and dangerous) landscapes across America, from Yosemite to the Grand Canyon. But though she had the support of the agency, Andrea grew frustrated with the service’s bureaucratic idiosyncrasies, and left the force after twelve years. Two decades later, however, she stumbles across a mystery that pulls her right back where she left off: three young men have vanished from the Pacific Crest Trail, the 2,650-mile trek made famous by Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, and no one has been able to find them. It’s bugging the hell out of her.
Andrea’s concern soon leads her to a wild environment unlike any she’s ever encountered: missing person Facebook groups. Andrea launches an investigation, joining forces with an eclectic team of amateurs who are determined to solve the cases by land and by screen: a mother of the missing, a retired pharmacy manager, and a mapmaker who monitors terrorist activity for the government. Together, they track the activities of kidnappers and murderers, investigate a cult, rescue a psychic in peril, cross paths with an unconventional scientist, and reunite an international fugitive with his family. Searching for the missing is a brutal psychological and physical test with the highest stakes, but eventually their hardships begin to bear strange fruits—ones that lead them to places and people they never saw coming.
Selling the Dream by Jane Marie
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True crime doesn’t have to feature murder – if you’re looking for something light on violence but heavy on drama, try reading about how multilevel marketing schemes have fed off the American working class for its own profit. Peabody and Emmy Award-winning journalist Jane Marie builds upon her podcast The Dream with this well-researched exposé, which earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly.
From the publisher:`
We’ve all heard of Amway, Mary Kay, Tupperware, and LuLaRoe, but few know the nefarious way they and countless other multilevel marketing (MLM) companies prey on desperate Americans struggling to make ends meet.
When factories close, stalwart industries shutter, and blue-collar opportunities evaporate, MLMs are there, ready to pounce on the crumbling American Dream. MLMs thrive in rural areas and on military bases, targeting women with promises of being their own boss and millions of dollars in easy income—even at the risk of their entire life savings. But the vast majority—99.7%—of those who join an MLM make no money or lose money, and wind up stuck with inventory they can’t sell to recoup their losses.
Featuring in-depth reporting and intimate research, Selling the Dream reveals how these companies—often owned by political and corporate elites, such as the Devos and the Van Andels families—have made a windfall in profit off of the desperation of the American working class.
More true crime reads
If you’re interested in exploring more true crime reads, check out some of our complete recommended lists here:
Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls
Must-Watch Films
Women Who Kill, 2016
Watch on Kanopy here
From the studio:
Commitment-phobe Morgan and her ex-girlfriend Jean are locally famous true crime podcasters obsessed with female serial killers. There’s a chance they may still have feelings for each other, but co-dependence takes a back seat when Morgan meets the mysterious Simone. Blinded by infatuation, Morgan ignores warnings from friends that her new love interest is practically a stranger.
A Murder to Remember, 2020
Watch on Kanopy here
From the studio:
Inspired by Ann Rule’s true crime collection Empty Promises. Javier and Robin Rivera are celebrating their one-year anniversary on a camping trip. But when Javier ends up dead, Robin finds herself alone in the rough wilderness.
A Little Something Extra
Support your community by diversifying your Libby offerings with Libby Extras. Today we’re highlighting Ground News.
Ground News empowers readers to compare headlines across the political spectrum and spot media bias using data-driven ratings.
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About the author: Claire Weibel has worked in publicity for the arts, public libraries, and archives. At OverDrive she helps public libraries manage their collections and creates lists of the hottest titles to help her partners shop and promote their collections to their patrons. When she isn’t reading she loves to run, try new recipes (while listening to an audiobook), plan her next road trip, or hang out with her two dogs and cat. Claire is always excited to talk about a good mystery or spooky books!
