Best True Crime History Books (nonfiction)
3. 
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders
by:
Vincent Bugliosi
4.06 avg rating — 152,005 ratings 4. 
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
by:
Kate Summerscale
3.51 avg rating — 24,676 ratings 5. 
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
by:
David Grann
4.14 avg rating — 425,906 ratings 
7. 
The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy: The Shocking Inside Story
by:
Ann Rule
4.14 avg rating — 108,998 ratings 8. 
The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science
by:
Douglas Starr
3.86 avg rating — 5,269 ratings 9. 
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
by:
Simon Winchester
3.84 avg rating — 120,599 ratings 10. 
The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime that Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars
by:
Paul Collins
3.58 avg rating — 8,672 ratings 
14. 
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
by:
Deborah Blum
4.01 avg rating — 36,511 ratings 15. 
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer 4.12 avg rating — 257,757 ratings
16. 
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
by:
Erik Larson
3.89 avg rating — 215,174 ratings 17. 
Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups
by:
Richard Belzer
3.66 avg rating — 736 ratings 18. 
For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago
by:
Simon Baatz
3.71 avg rating — 3,695 ratings 19. 
The Devil's Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century
by:
Harold Schechter
3.69 avg rating — 2,022 ratings 20. 
Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest
by:
Gregg Olsen
3.68 avg rating — 9,950 ratings 21. 
Death in a Prairie House: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Murders 3.52 avg rating — 1,776 ratings
23. 
Bestial: The Savage Trail of a True American Monster
by:
Harold Schechter
3.82 avg rating — 1,442 ratings 24. 
The Devil's Rooming House: The True Story of America's Deadliest Female Serial Killer 3.47 avg rating — 1,754 ratings
28. 
Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde
by:
Jeff Guinn
4.20 avg rating — 5,168 ratings 29. 
Death in the City of Light: The True Story of the Serial Killer Who Terrorised Wartime Paris
by:
David King
3.54 avg rating — 8,101 ratings 30. 
The Lost King of France: How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette
by:
Deborah Cadbury
4.20 avg rating — 2,414 ratings 
33. 
Did She Kill Him?: A Victorian Tale of Deception, Adultery, and Arsenic
by:
Kate Colquhoun
3.56 avg rating — 504 ratings 34. 
Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three
by:
Mara Leveritt
4.16 avg rating — 12,417 ratings 35. 
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
by:
Candice Millard
4.22 avg rating — 81,267 ratings 
40. 
No Stone Unturned: The True Story of the World's Premier Forensic Investigators
by:
Steve Jackson
4.22 avg rating — 4,024 ratings 
42. 
The Road Out of Hell: Sanford Clark and the True Story of the Wineville Murders
by:
Anthony Flacco
4.12 avg rating — 3,170 ratings 43. 
And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank
by:
Steve Oney
4.07 avg rating — 474 ratings 44. 
True Hollywood Noir: Filmland Mysteries and Murders
by:
Dina Di Mambro
3.51 avg rating — 426 ratings 
46. 
The Man With The Candy: The Story of The Houston Mass Murders
by:
Jack Olsen
3.81 avg rating — 1,116 ratings 47. 
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland 4.47 avg rating — 148,982 ratings
48. 
In the Still of the Night: The Strange Death of Ronda Reynolds and Her Mother's Unceasing Quest for the Truth
by:
Ann Rule
3.79 avg rating — 4,657 ratings 49. 
Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America 4.44 avg rating — 1,229 ratings
51. 
Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, a Life Reclaimed - A Memoir of the Cleveland Kidnappings
by:
Michelle Knight
4.18 avg rating — 30,090 ratings 52. 
The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World
by:
Sarah Weinman
3.41 avg rating — 7,422 ratings 53. 
The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral--And How It Changed The American West
by:
Jeff Guinn
3.97 avg rating — 2,791 ratings 54. 
Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China
by:
Paul French
3.86 avg rating — 7,295 ratings 
56. 
American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century
by:
Paula Uruburu
3.74 avg rating — 3,061 ratings 
56. 
A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy
by:
Sue Klebold
4.14 avg rating — 44,117 ratings 
61. 
At Any Cost: A Father's Betrayal, a Wife's Murder, and a Ten-Year War for Justice 4.15 avg rating — 1,294 ratings
62. 
Deaths on Pleasant Street: The Ghastly Enigma of Colonel Swope and Doctor Hyde
by:
Giles Fowler
3.87 avg rating — 445 ratings 63. 
The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century
by:
Scott Miller
3.95 avg rating — 4,679 ratings 64. 
Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales
by:
William M. Bass
4.22 avg rating — 14,000 ratings 65. 
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
by:
Sheri Fink
3.93 avg rating — 39,324 ratings 
67. 
Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters
by:
Peter Vronsky
4.13 avg rating — 5,912 ratings 68. 
The Whiskey Au Go Go Massacre: Murder, Arson and the Crime of the Century
by:
Geoff Plunkett
4.39 avg rating — 66 ratings 69. 
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
by:
Hallie Rubenhold
4.09 avg rating — 64,213 ratings 
72. 
The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV
by:
Anne Somerset
3.69 avg rating — 773 ratings 
74. 
The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery
by:
Bill James
3.47 avg rating — 9,166 ratings 75. 
The Good-Bye Door: The Incredible True Story of America's First Female Serial Killer to Die in the Chair 3.59 avg rating — 160 ratings
76. 
Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood
by:
William J. Mann
3.63 avg rating — 5,106 ratings 
79. 
Murder in the Stacks: Penn State, Betsy Aardsma, and the Killer Who Got Away
by:
David DeKok
3.53 avg rating — 603 ratings 
81. 
Blood Feud: The Hatfields And The Mccoys: The Epic Story Of Murder And Vengeance
by:
Lisa Alther
3.36 avg rating — 1,224 ratings 81. 
Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw
by:
Mark Bowden
3.98 avg rating — 19,105 ratings 83. 
Blind Eye: The Terrifying Story of a Doctor Who Got Away with Murder
by:
James B. Stewart
3.84 avg rating — 2,128 ratings 
85. 
The Beast of Chicago: An Account of the Life and Crimes of Herman W. Mudgett, Known to the World As H.H. Holmes
by:
Rick Geary
3.83 avg rating — 753 ratings 86. 
The Father of Forensics: The Groundbreaking Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury, and the Beginnings of Modern CSI
by:
Colin Evans
4.10 avg rating — 586 ratings 87. 
Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation
by:
Dean Jobb
3.87 avg rating — 2,199 ratings 88. 
The Borden Tragedy: A Memoir of the Infamous Double Murder at Fall River, Mass., 1892 (A Treasury of Victorian Murder Book 3)
by:
Rick Geary
3.84 avg rating — 1,103 ratings 89. 
In Search of Sacco and Vanzetti: Double Lives, Troubled Times, and the Massachusetts Murder Case That Shook the World
by:
Susan Tejada
3.81 avg rating — 106 ratings 89. 
The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer 3.63 avg rating — 6,731 ratings
91. 
Survivor's Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect President Kennedy 4.20 avg rating — 123 ratings
92. 
Hidden History: An Exposé of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups in American Politics
by:
Donald Jeffries
4.01 avg rating — 339 ratings 
94. 
Killer Triggers: Murder Comes Down to Sex, Drugs, or Money
by:
Joe Kenda
4.44 avg rating — 2,661 ratings 94. 
Never Enough: The Carl Katz Story - A Man Hunted by the Nazis Long After the Fall of the Third Reich
by:
Elise Garibaldi
4.31 avg rating — 35 ratings 96. 
The Fall of the House of Walworth: A Tale of Madness and Murder in Gilded Age America
by:
Geoffrey O'Brien
3.13 avg rating — 437 ratings 
98. 
Beyond the Body Farm: A Legendary Bone Detective Explores Murders, Mysteries, and the Revolution in Forensic Science
by:
William M. Bass
4.23 avg rating — 7,820 ratings 
99. 
Hauptmann's Ladder: A Step-by-Step Analysis of the Lindbergh Kidnapping 4.16 avg rating — 119 ratings