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Thread: Detective/crime fiction/true crime

  1. #1
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    Detective/crime fiction/true crime

    What are your faves/recommendations?
    Go!

    I'm currently on vol.2 of Stieg Larsson, and I'm digging it. The writing is not always the best, but it keeps you reading.

  2. #2
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    for true crime, Helter Skelter is pretty essential reading.

  3. #3
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    ^^^ definitely #1 true crime.

    I went through a period where all I read was true crime.

    Here's a few I would recommend:

    In Cold Blood - Capote
    The Executioner's Song - Norman Mailer
    The Stranger Beside Me - Anne Rule - not sure if it holds up years later. It's about Ted Bundy. All here other stuff is a bit overwrought in its writing style.
    Under The Banner Of Heaven - Krauker - this was a lot of words, but it's about Mormans!
    Fatal Vision -- Joe McGuiness - this one got me started on true crime, hopefully it's been revised. I think it was originally published before the case was resolved completely.
    Black Dahlia - McEllroy - I believe this is more true crime than crime fiction.

    I have to think a bit more about the other two genres. There used to be a book store in NYC that my dad took me to as a kid, Murder Ink. All they sold was mystery novels. Ahhh memories (I went for the candy - but I was exposed early, like 10).

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    it's sort of a true crime / bio mashup but james ellroy's "my dark places"

    "death in the city of light" by david king - Death in the City of Light is the gripping, true story of a brutal serial killer who unleashed his own reign of terror in Nazi-Occupied Paris...

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    i've read a LOT of these books but don't remember many of them.

    i love the genre.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jinsai View Post
    for true crime, Helter Skelter is pretty essential reading.
    Books like this scare me more than any kind of fiction, to learn there REALLY ARE people out there who do this kind of thing.

    Bugluosi wrote another true crime book about another case he prosecuted, called Till Death Us Do Part: A True Murder Mystery. I thought it was a good read, too.

    As for crime/detective fiction, I like James Lee Burke, Alafair Burke (James Lee's daughter), Michael Connelly, John D. McDonald, among others. If you like older stuff, it's hard to beat Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, or Erle Stanely Gardner. Chandler, in particular, used more humor than I expected before I read his work.
    Last edited by blake; 04-17-2016 at 05:08 PM.

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