True Crime & Legal
Perhaps few genres have benefitted as much from the rise of binge-watching culture as true crime. Any of these texts could be adapted as a streaming documentary series—and a few are already available. Dive into this collection for real drama ripped straight from the headlines.
Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action is a 1995 nonfiction account of the legal case Anderson v. Cryovac, which disputed whether water contamination was the cause of leukemia in the defendant’s child and other members of the community. The case was between several families in Woburn, Massachusetts, and two corporations, Beatrice Foods and W.R. Grace. Harr is an American writer and journalist. A Civil Action was his first book, followed by Funeral Wars (2001) and The... Read A Civil Action Summary
A Few Good Men is a play written by Aaron Sorkin and first performed in 1989. The story involves a military lawyer who defends two Marines accused of murder. The play was well-received, and Sorkin adapted it into a screenplay for the film of the same name (released in 1992), which was a popular and critical success.Plot SummaryA Few Good Men opens as two Marines, Downey and Dawson, recall the details of a nighttime incident... Read A Few Good Men Summary
All the President’s Men (1974) is the story of the most famous American political scandal of the 20th century. Written by Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the book follows in exacting detail their investigation into the Watergate Hotel break-in and subsequent coverup of that crime. The case began with a story on an unusual burglary attempt at the Democratic National Headquarters in the summer of 1972. It eventually evolved into an investigation... Read All the President's Men Summary
Kevin Boyle's Arc of Justice depicts the racial turmoil in Detroit in 1925 through the story of Dr. Ossian Sweet, an African-American physician who faces murder charges after trying to defend his home in an all-white neighborhood from mob violence. The grandson of a slave, Ossian moves northward during the Great Migration to get his education at Wilberforce and Howard Universities. After graduating Howard's medical school, Ossian sets up practice and residence in Black Bottom... Read Arc of Justice Summary
A Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder and Its Aftermath (2004) is a true-crime story and memoir by Jeanine Cummins. The book recounts the violent rape and murder of two young women, Julie and Robin Kerry, the author’s cousins, and focuses on the aftermath for their families. Tom Cummins, their cousin who is present during the crimes, is thrown off a bridge into the Mississippi River with the two women but survives. Innocent, he... Read A Rip in Heaven Summary
A Stolen Life: A Memoir (July 2011) is the story of the abduction and captivity of author Jaycee Lee Dugard when she was 11 years old. Dugard is not a professional author and declined to use a ghostwriter to tell her story of abuse and survival. Her memoir became a New York Times bestseller and was followed by a sequel entitled Freedom: My Book of Firsts (2016).Shortly after her release from her captors in August... Read A Stolen Life Summary
One of the great corporate frauds of the 21st century, the Theranos blood-test scam, is brought to light in the award-winning bestseller Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, published in 2018 and updated in 2020. Author John Carreyrou, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and bureau chief at The Wall Street Journal, brings his years of experience to the case against tech startup Theranos and its spellbinding CEO, Elizabeth Holmes. The Vintage Books... Read Bad Blood Summary
Blood Done Sign My Name (2004), by Timothy B. Tyson, is a nonfiction work of history centered on the racially motivated 1970 murder of Henry Marrow Jr. in Oxford, North Carolina. The killing occurred after Marrow, a 23-year-old Black Army veteran, husband, and father of two, allegedly made a flirtatious remark in the direction of a 19-year-old married white woman. The woman’s husband, brother-in-law, and father-in-law chased Marrow down the street, shot him from behind... Read Blood Done Sign My Name Summary
Catch and Kill is a 2019 nonfiction book by the American journalist Ronan Farrow. The book details Farrow’s investigation into decades of sexual abuse and cover-ups committed by Hollywood executive Harvey Weinstein as well as numerous institutional attempts to prevent his abuse coming to light. Catch and Kill begins with investigative journalist Ronan Farrow searching for a story with producer Rich McHugh in 2016. Although rumors about Harvey Weinstein’s abusive behavior are beginning to reach... Read Catch and Kill Summary
Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake is a nonfiction book written from the perspective of Frank Abagnale, a famous conartist and check-forger. Though styled as an autobiography, the book was co-written by Abagnale and author Stan Redding. Originally published in 1980, Catch Me If You Can was popularized by a 2002 film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The book also inspired a Broadway musical of the... Read Catch Me If You Can Summary
Celia, A Slave is Melton A. McLaurin’s book-length analysis of the trial and execution of Celia, a slave in Callaway County, Missouri who kills her master and burns his body in her fireplace. McLaurin, a historian, argues that Celia’s case offers us important insights into how together, gender and racial oppression render enslaved women completely powerless to protect themselves from sexual exploitation, and how the moral ambiguity caused by slavery is often reconciled in the... Read Celia, A Slave Summary
Dave Cullen’s nonfiction book, Columbine (2009), chronicles the mass shooting at Colorado’s Columbine High School, on April 20, 1999. The perpetrators of the shooting, Columbine High seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed thirteen people—twelve students and one teacher—and injured another two-dozen, before taking their own lives. Cullen’s book moves backward and forward in time, chronicling the lives of the shooters, the victims, the victims’ families, and others both before and after the April 20... Read Columbine Summary
The Constitution of the United States is the oldest national constitution that’s still in use. The idea of founding a government on the basis of a written constitution was revolutionary when the US Constitution was drafted in 1787. The idea had two novel components: first, the document both establishes and limits the power of the government—no figurehead, ruler, or body of legislators stands above the Constitution. Second, it was written by representatives of the governed—55... Read Constitution of United States of America Summary
Steve Bogira’s nonfiction work Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse was published in 2005. Bogira, as a Chicago native and long-time writer for the Chicago Reader, is a social justice advocate and focuses much of his work on poverty and segregation. The work addresses themes of The Injustices of the US Justice System, The Prison-Industrial Complex, and The Influences of Corruption and Politics on Criminal Courts.Content Warning: The source... Read Courtroom 302 Summary
Dark Places is a 2009 mystery thriller novel by American author Gillian Flynn. The narrative moves between two time periods, 1985 and 2009, as the protagonist, Libby Day, tries to solve her family’s brutal murder. The novel deals with the consequences of the 1980s Satanic Panic and the fallout from the 1970s Farm Boom for a community in the rural Midwest. Flynn is the author of Gone Girl (2012) and other popular mystery thrillers.Dark Places... Read Dark Places Summary
Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States is a memoir originally published in 1993 by Sister Helen Prejean. In the book, Prejean, a Catholic nun with the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Medaille (now the Congregation of Saint Joseph), describes her ministry to death-row inmates Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie in Louisiana in the early 1980s. Her experience with Sonnier, who was ultimately put to death... Read Dead Man Walking Summary
Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King, subtitled Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, is an account of an important but relatively little-known legal case that paved the way for the advances of the civil rights era. The book begins with the story behind the case: In July 1949, in Groveland, Florida, a 17-year-old girl named Norma Lee Padgett claims a group of four young black men raped her... Read Devil in the Grove Summary
Published in 2013, Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital is a work of nonfiction by American journalist Sheri Fink. The book, which takes place in August 2005, describes the struggle of staff and patients to survive when trapped in New Orleans’ Memorial Medical Center during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Lacking critical resources, the doctors make a drastic decision that will cause many patients to die via euthanasia. Five Days... Read Five Days at Memorial Summary
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep, a staff writer for New Yorker Magazine, is a work of literary nonfiction in the true-crime genre. Furious Hours was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction and was on the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction Best-Seller List. Published in 2019, the book is the story of Willie Maxwell, an Alabama preacher whose neighbors suspected him of using voodoo to... Read Furious Hours Summary
Vincent Bugliosi (1934-2015), the lead prosecutor in the case of the murders committed by Charles Manson and his followers, wrote the book Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders as a detailed account of the trial, evidence, and interviews with the witnesses that eventually put these horrific criminals behind bars. Written with the help of ghostwriter Curt Gentry, the book highlights Bugliosi’s insider’s perspective on the events, with detailed explanations of the gory... Read Helter Skelter Summary
In Hole in My Life, Jack Gantos recounts the story of his time as an idle teenager turned drug smuggler, including his eventual capture by the government and his time spent in Ashford Federal Penitentiary, in Kentucky. The biography serves as much as a lesson to readers in how Gantos turns his own life around as it does the story of how Gantos developed his writing style. The story moves back and forth in time, starting... Read Hole In My Life Summary
If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood by Gregg Olsen is narrative nonfiction true crime book published in 2019. It documents the story of Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek, sisters who survived living with their mother, Shelly Knotek, who would ultimately be responsible for the infamous Raymond torture killings in Washington State. Olsen specializes in writing crime-related narratives about people who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances... Read If You Tell Summary
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is a true crime book written by Michelle McNamara about the Golden State Killer (GSK). The GSK committed his crimes—a series of rapes escalating to homicides—in Northern and Southern California during the 1970s and 80s. McNamara’s book describes both the GSK’s crimes and her own pursuit of the criminal some 30 years later. The book was published posthumously in 2018, nearly two years after McNamara’s death. The narrative describes how... Read I'll Be Gone in the Dark Summary
Part memoir, part exhortation for much-needed reform to the American criminal justice system, Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy is a heartrending and inspirational call to arms written by the activist lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, an Alabama-based organization responsible for freeing or reducing the sentences of scores of wrongfully convicted individuals. Stevenson’s memoir weaves together personal stories from his years as a lawyer with strong statements against racial and legal injustice, drawing a clear... Read Just Mercy Summary
Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever is a popular nonfiction historical narrative recounting the 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The book was written in September 2011 by New York Times bestselling author and controversial conservative talk show host Bill O’Reilly, former anchor of The O’Reilly Factor. The book is also authored by New York Times bestselling author Martin Dugard, whose book Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone has been... Read Killing Lincoln Summary
Published in 2019, Chanel Miller’s Know My Name: A Memoir is her first book. A harrowing account of surviving rape and reclaiming identity, Miller’s memoir documents her 2015 rape at Stanford University and its aftermath. A New York Times bestselling author, Miller provides a raw yet hopeful examination of sexual assault. Through the intersections of gender, race, and class, Miller, who is Chinese American, explores society’s treatment of survivors. Ultimately, Miller offers a hopeful journey... Read Know My Name: A Memoir Summary
Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer (2006) by James L. Swanson is a popular true-crime historical thriller about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 and the search for the assassin John Wilkes Booth. James Swanson has written several books about Abraham Lincoln and other events in American history including the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The book won the Edgar Award, a literary award for fiction and non-fiction works... Read Manhunt Summary
Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker is an autobiography published in 1995 that chronicles Mr. Douglas’s life and his illustrious career with the FBI. In particular, the book details Douglas’s development of psychological profiling as a tool for law enforcement through an extensive study that he conducted with his colleagues in the Behavioral Science Unit. He has interviewed many of America’s most notorious serial killers in his... Read Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit Summary
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer is a work of narrative nonfiction that explores the pervasive issue of sexual violence within the context of a college town. Published in 2015, the book offers an examination of several cases of sexual assault at the University of Montana in Missoula, shedding light on the systemic failures of the justice system and the broader societal attitudes that often exacerbate the trauma... Read Missoula Summary
Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerance is a 2006 nonfiction book written by Dutch professor and social scientist Ian Buruma. The book investigates both the murder of Theo van Gogh, a prominent Dutch filmmaker, social critic, and opponent of political Islam in Europe. Additionally, it explores feelings of historical guilt, liberal mores, and the changing social fabric that has created tension between the native Dutch and the large, mostly Muslim... Read Murder in Amsterdam Summary
My Friend Dahmer is a graphic novel/memoir by American cartoonist and writer Derf Backderf, known for utilizing darkness and shading in his comic strips and graphic novels. Evolving from a 24-page cartoon created in 2002, My Friend Dahmer (2012) depicts the author’s memories of his high school friend, notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, in novelistic form—exploring the ways Dahmer himself could have been helped and his 17 murders prevented. The graphic novel was adapted into... Read My Friend Dahmer Summary
No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row is a nonfiction young adult book published by Susan Kuklin in 2009. The book recounts Kuklin’s interviews with teenagers sentenced to death row or life without the possibility of parole. In addition to allowing her subjects to share their experiences in their own words, the book also delves into the US criminal justice system and the issue of capital punishment. No Choirboy is a 2009 Bank... Read No Choirboy Summary
Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption is a 2009 memoir written by Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino. The coauthors share a unique relationship. When she was 22, Jennifer mistakenly identified Ronald as the man who raped her in her apartment. He was wrongfully convicted and spent 11 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA testing. Together, they tell their story, which explores themes of Victimization, Guilt, and Shame; The Unreliability of Eyewitness... Read Picking Cotton Summary
Presumed Innocent (1987) is Scott Turow’s first novel, originally published by Farrar Straus & Giroux. The hit novel stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 44 weeks and is often credited as an early example of the modern legal thriller, helping to shape the genre’s conventions. Turow went on to publish 12 additional novels and three nonfiction works. He also continued to practice law, specializing in criminal defense, contrasting with Presumed Innocent’s protagonist... Read Presumed Innocent Summary
IntroductionEmma Donoghue’s Room is a 2010 novel about a boy named Jack who lives in a single room with his mother, Ma. Room is a crime thriller novel that explores themes of trauma, innocence, and adaptability through the eyes of five-year-old narrator, Jack. Room has received many awards, including the ALA Alex Award, the Indies Choice Book Award for Fiction, and The New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year award. Room was... Read Room Summary
Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland interprets the Irish “Troubles” in which clashing state and paramilitary forces in Northern Ireland fought an unofficial ethno-nationalist war. Though the monograph is a work of non-fiction investigative journalism, it unfolds like a murder mystery, focusing on the case of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of 10 that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) abducted and secretly killed in 1972. The... Read Say Nothing Summary
Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and academic Edward J. Larson is a work of historical non-fiction first published in 1997 that discusses the history of the Scopes trial, the events surrounding it, and the aftermath. The 2006 edition includes a new afterword by the author.Larson begins by describing the geopolitical environment in the United States at the time of the 1925... Read Summer for the Gods Summary
Sycamore Row (2013) by John Grisham is the sequel to his debut novel and best-selling legal thriller, A Time to Kill (1989). Grisham, a practicing lawyer prior to his career as a novelist, popularized the legal thriller with his prolific work in the genre, frequently highlighting social justice and legal ethics issues. Though marketed as a legal thriller, Grisham himself makes a clear distinction between his legal thrillers and his Ford County novels—aka the Jake... Read Sycamore Row Summary
The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed Their Lives (2017) is a work of narrative nonfiction by Dashka Slater, a journalist and children’s book author. The book covers an event that happened on November 4, 2013, when two high school students were riding the same city bus and one set the other on fire.The interaction between these two teenagers lasts just a matter of minutes, but the events... Read The 57 Bus Summary
The Blood of Emmett Till is a 2017 nonfiction book by Timothy B. Tyson. The text provides an account of the 1955 murder of a young African American boy named Emmet Till. Till was visiting Mississippi from Chicago, where his parents had emigrated during the Great Migration of the 1920s. They sought employment in the North, but they also sought to escape from the terror exercised by whites on blacks in the South.The Civil War... Read The Blood of Emmett Till Summary
The Butcher’s Tale: Murder and Anti-Semitism in a German Town (2002), a history/Judaica book by German American author Helmut Walser Smith, deals with a sensational murder case that took place in Konitz, a town in Prussia (Eastern Germany) in 1900. Ernst Winter, an 18-year-old student, was found murdered with his body parts dismembered and hidden in various places throughout the town. The residents of Konitz turned against the community’s Jewish inhabitants, accusing them of ritual... Read The Butcher's Tale Summary
Published in 2004, The Corporation, by legal scholar Joel Bakan, demonstrates that corporations often misbehave because it is in their nature to do so. The corporate legal mandate, to pursue profit on behalf of shareholders, impels corporations to take any action, including callous, antisocial, and even unlawful behaviors, so long as they generate a profit. Because corporations are created by governments, they are beholden to the state for their survival, yet they often manage to... Read The Corporation Summary
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America is a 2003 nonfiction historical thriller by American journalist Erik Larson. The book revisits the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, following the stories of two very different history-making men: Daniel Hudson Burnham, the architect of the fair, and H. H. Holmes, the notorious serial killer. The book explores themes such as the contrast between sanity and insanity; the anonymity... Read The Devil in the White City Summary
The Feather Thief by American author, screenwriter, and journalist Kirk Wallace Johnson is about the 2009 heist of the British Natural History Museum at Tring. It retraces the background of the 20-year-old American thief, professional flautist, and master fly-tier, Edwin Rist, who stole 299 rare bird skins from the museum. Johnson first heard about the heist while fly-fishing on a river in New Mexico. Living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after years of aid work... Read The Feather Thief Summary
OverviewBook DetailsThe Firm is the second legal thriller written by attorney John Grisham. It followed his 1988 debut novel A Time to Kill. The Firm was the top-selling novel of 1991 on the New York Times bestseller list, bringing its author international fame. It focuses on new Harvard Law School graduate Mitch McDeere, who accepts a financially lucrative position with a Memphis law firm that he discovers is embroiled in unethical and illegal activities.Author HighlightsGrisham... Read The Firm Summary
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky is Heidi Durrow’s debut novel. Published in 2010 by Oneworld Publications, the novel won the PEN/Bellweather Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, an award that recognizes work by a previously unpublished author that explores a social issue. The Girl Who Fell from the Sky explores the impact of racism and loss on a young girl whose mother is a White woman from Denmark and whose father is a Black... Read The Girl Who Fell From The Sky Summary
The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder by Charles Graeber is a true crime biography of the life of Charles Cullen, one of the most prolific serial killers in US history. Graeber is an American journalist who spent time as a medical student before moving on to journalism, writing for many prolific news outlets. His joint history in medicine and writing provides him with the necessary expertise to explain the intimacies... Read The Good Nurse Summary
In The Innocent Man, noted crime-fiction author John Grisham takes on the true story of a series of murders in Ada, Oklahoma that led to the conviction, imprisonment, and near execution of not one, but four innocent men. Grisham uses a no-nonsense, journalistic style to present the facts, though an occasional sarcastic aside from the author slips in when the true events become almost too ridiculous to believe. Tracing the aftermath of the murders of... Read The Innocent Man Summary
The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th Century America is a work of non-fiction published in 1994 by Oxford University Press. Historians Paul Johnson and Sean Wilentz tell the little-known story of Matthias the Prophet in a dramatic and well-documented account that blends biography with true crime. The authors recount events that occurred during the Second Great Awakening, a Protestant religious revival in the United States that reached its peak... Read The Kingdom Of Matthias Summary
Susan Orlean, longtime staff writer at The New Yorker and best-selling author of The Orchid Thief, returned to narrative nonfiction with The Library Book (2018). Through the story of the Los Angeles Central Library, Orlean provides a history of libraries, examining what we stand to lose as the world’s base of knowledge transitions into the digital realm. Orlean received a Goodreads Choice Awards nomination for Best Nonfiction and a place on Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine... Read The Library Book Summary
Michael Connelly is a prolific New York Times bestselling author. His legal thriller, The Lincoln Lawyer, won the Shamus Award and Macavity Award in 2006. The book was then successfully adapted to film. Connelly is widely regarded as one of the best American mystery writers. This guide refers to the 2005 Hieronymus, Inc. edition. Plot SummaryMichael “Mick” Haller is a criminal defense attorney working in Los Angeles. He spends most of his time working out... Read The Lincoln Lawyer Summary
The Minds of Billy Milligan (1981) is a nonfiction work by Daniel Keyes, documenting the life and experiences of William Stanley “Billy” Milligan, the first defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity because of dissociative identity disorder (DID). The book follows Milligan’s early life experiences that led to his illness, arrest, and trial after the rapes of three women on the Ohio State University campus, as well as the years he spent in different... Read The Minds of Billy Milligan Summary
Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer is a 2010 middle-grade novel written by John Grisham, and it is the first installment in the Theodore Boone series. Grisham is an experienced layer and writer of over 30 novels, with most of his writing in the legal thriller genre. Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer is Grisham’s first foray into writing for a younger audience, which the author called a challenge in shifting the way he thought about his writing approach... Read Theodore Boone Summary
The Orchid Thief is a nonfiction book by Susan Orlean, originally published in 1998. It is a narrative nonfiction account of the crimes and trial of John Laroche, accused of stealing endangered orchid species from the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve in Florida. The basic story of Laroche and his crimes originally ran as an article in The New Yorker, entitled “Orchid Fever” and published in 1995. The book expands the story and also details Orlean’s... Read The Orchid Thief Summary
The Pelican Brief is a 1992 novel by the American writer John Grisham. The legal thriller tells the story of Darby Shaw, a young law student who uncovers a vast conspiracy. The book was adapted into a film in 1993 starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington.Plot SummaryAn assassin named Khamel kills two Supreme Court Justices. Though the Justices were seemingly at different ends of the political spectrum, the same mysterious figure pays Khamel to kill... Read The Pelican Brief Summary
The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York is a 2010 non-fiction book by science writer Deborah Blum. This guide follows the first edition of the book. In The Poisoner’s Handbook, Blum explores how Charles Norris and Alexander Gettler laid the foundations for the modern field of forensic science in New York in the 1920s. Through Norris and Gettler’s stories, Blum also narrates a number of important social... Read The Poisoner’s Handbook Summary
In The Return of Martin Guerre, Natalie Zemon Davis, historian and professor at Princeton University, reconstructs the sixteenth century legend of Martin Guerre, a man with a wooden leg who arrived to a courthouse in Toulouse just in time to denounce an imposter who had stolen his wife, his family, and his inheritance. Arnaud du Tilh, a clever and persuasive peasant with a somewhat sordid past, had indeed taken Martin’s identity, and he nearly escaped... Read The Return of Martin Guerre Summary
The Street Lawyer, by John Grisham, was originally published by Bantam Books in January 1998. Grisham’s ninth novel, The Street Lawyer occupied a spot in Grisham’s streak of top-ten bestselling novels, which began with the record-breaking success of his second novel, The Firm, and lasted over two decades. Prior to penning his first novel, A Time to Kill, Grisham earned a JD from University of Mississippi School of Law and practiced civil and criminal trial... Read The Street Lawyer Summary
The Whisper Man, released in August 2019, is a crime thriller by British author Alex North about the potential resurgence of a serial child murderer known as the Whisper Man and how it entangles various characters in a small town. North claims he got the idea for the book after his son mentioned “the boy in the floor.” Through criminal investigation and the lives of a father and son, North explores the nature of intergenerational... Read The Whisper Man Summary
The 2016 novel The Whistler by American author John Grisham is a legal thriller that centers on an investigation of corrupt business operations involving Native American gaming. The novel is based on the real-life corruption of US casinos in which entities outside the Native American community illegally offer financial incentives in exchange for long-term profit.This is the 29th of Grisham’s adult novels, which are primarily legal thrillers but also include contemporary and humorous fiction. In... Read The Whistler Summary
Cylin and John Busby’s The Year We Disappeared is a true crime memoir originally published in 2008. An expanded, 10th-anniversary edition was published in 2018. The book falls into both the memoir and true crime genres and is told from the perspective of the victims rather than a third party, such as a reporter. The Busby’s story was also featured on CBS’s newsmagazine, 48 Hours. It originally aired in 2010.Plot SummaryIn the summer of 1979... Read The Year We Disappeared Summary
Erik Larson’s Thunderstruck is a 2006 work of narrative nonfiction that braids two seemingly unrelated historical events that captured public attention in the pre-World War I years. The first involves the emerging and transformative technology of wireless communication designed by Marconi, the second a gruesome murder in London perpetrated by a seemingly docile and genial doctor named Crippen. Thunderstruck follows the success of Larson’s 2003 Devil in the White City, which coupled America’s first major... Read Thunderstruck Summary
Reginald Rose was born in Manhattan, New York in 1920. He saw active service during the Second World War and began his writing career in 1950 with the play The Bus to Nowhere. The experience of serving on a jury in 1954 inspired Rose to write his most famous work, Twelve Angry Men. The play was first broadcast as a one-hour television drama that same year. In 1957, the play was adapted for film, starring... Read Twelve Angry Men Summary
In 2003, Jon Krakauer, nonfiction author and journalist, published Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith. Now the inspiration for a television series of the same title on Hulu, the story sent shockwaves as it explored religious extremism on American soil that closely resembled the Taliban-style extremism that had captured the country’s attention following the September 11 attacks. This guide refers to the 2004 paperback edition published by First Anchor Books.Content warning:... Read Under the Banner of Heaven Summary
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Woman at Point Zero, also titled Firdaus, is a 1975 novella by Nawal El Saadawi based on the true account of a woman named Firdaus who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1974. Saadawi was a prolific Egyptian feminist and physician, and she worked with Egyptian women who experienced various mental conditions that Saadawi saw largely as resulting from living in a patriarchal society. She had the privilege of meeting Firdaus on... Read Woman at Point Zero Summary