True Crime Audiobooks | Mystery, Thriller & Horror

In 1963, with the city of Boston already terrified by a series of savage crimes known as the Boston Stranglings, a murder occurred in the quiet suburb of Belmont, just a few blocks from the house of Sebastian Junger's family -- a murder that seemed to fit exactly the pattern of the Strangler. Roy Smith, a black man who had cleaned the victim's house that day, was arrested, tried, and convicted, but the terror of the Strangler continued. Two years later, Albert DeSalvo, a handyman who had been working at the Jungers' home on the day of the Belmont murder, and had often spent time there alone with Sebastian and his mother, confessed in lurid detail to being the Boston Strangler. This is the point of entry to Junger's first book-length project since The Perfect Storm: a narrowly averted tragedy for Junger's family opens out into an electrifying exploration of race and justice in America. By turns exciting and subtle, the narrative chronicles three lives that collide -- and are ultimately destroyed -- in the vortex of one of the first and most controversial serial murder cases in America. The power of the story and the brilliance of Junger's reporting place this book on the short shelf of classics beside In Cold Blood and Helter Skelter. Read by Kevin Conway

Sebastian Junger (Author), Kevin Conway, Kevin Conway (Narrator)

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Murder in Greenwich

Newsflash: Grand Jury just empaneled to investigate the unsolved murder of Martha Moxley! The night of October 30, 1975, fifteen-year-old Martha Moxley was bludgeoned and stabbed with a golf club on the grounds of her family1s Greenwich home. The golf club that killed Martha came from the house of Thomas and Michael Skakel, two boys who had been with Martha the night she died. Wealthy and prominent in their own right, the Skakels were also related to the Kennedys, as Ethel Skakel Kennedy was the boys' aunt. When the police started looking closely at the Skakels' involvement, the family refused to cooperate. In Murder in Greenwich, the former LAPD homicide detective Mark Fuhrman follows his controversial role in the O.J. Simpson trial by investigating the unsolved homicide from the beginning. Using his detective skills, he analyzes the case and uncovers explosive new information. Mark Fuhrman reveals: - How the local police mishandled the investigation from the beginning.- How the murder weapon was found-and then lost-at the crime scene. - How wealth and influence interfered with the investigation.- How authorities tried to stop Fuhrman's investigation. A beautiful teenager was brutally murdered in an exclusive and well-guarded suburb. How could it happen? Why did her killer get away with it? Who was involved in the cover-up? What role did the town of Greenwich itself play in this tragic story? From his investigation, Mark Fuhrman will offer his answer to these questions, as well as the question that everyone is still asking "Who killed Martha Moxley?"

Mark Fuhrman (Author), Len Cariou (Narrator)

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In Cold Blood

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.As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.

Truman Capote (Author), Scott Brick (Narrator)

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Zodiac: The Shocking True Story of the Nation's Most Bizarre Mass Murderer

A sexual sadist, his pleasure was torture and murder. His first victims were a teenage couple, stalked and shot dead in a lover's lane. After another slaying, he sent his first mocking note to authorities, promising he would kill again. The official tally of his victims was six. The real toll may have reached fifty. He was never caught. "After Jack the Ripper and before Son of Sam there is only one name their equal in terror: the deadly, elusive, and mysterious Zodiac. Since 1968 the hooded mass murderer has terrified the city of San Francisco and the Bay Area with a string of brutal killings. Zodiac, in taunting letters sent to the newspapers, has hidden clues to his identity by using cunning ciphers that have defied the greatest code breaking minds of the CIA, the FBI, and NSA."-from the book "Provocative....Bizarre....Graysmith's taut narrative brings the horror back with jolt upon jolt."-San Francisco Chronicle

Robert Graysmith (Author), Stefan Rudnicki (Narrator)

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Stealing Your Life: The Ultimate Identity Theft Prevention Plan

Frank W. Abagnale (Author), Raymond Todd (Narrator)

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Escape from Alcatraz

Mobster Al "Scarface" Capone, "Machine Gun" Kelly, Robert Stroud ada the Birdman: only the most violent, desperate criminals were sent to Alcatraz Island-"The Rock". Also referred to as "Hellcatraz" by its inmates, this federal prison's conditions were so harsh that escape, riot-even death-were an inmate's only hope. This gripping true crime classic tells the story of life on The Rock and of fourteen ingenious escape attempts by the prisoners, most notably Frank Morris, whose daring plan was the basis for the memorable 1979 Clint Eastwood film Escape from Alcatraz.

J. Campbell Bruce (Author), Patrick Cullen (Narrator)

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Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Read John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in Large Print.* All Random House Large Print editions are published in a 16-point typefaceShots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981.Was it murder or self-defense?For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares.John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction.Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight.These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story is a sublime and seductive reading experience.Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city is certain to become a modern classic.From the Trade Paperback edition.

John Berendt (Author), Jeff Woodman (Narrator)

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American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman and the Shoot-Out That Stopped It

AMERICAN GUNFIGHT is the fast-paced, definitive, and breathtakingly suspenseful account of an extraordinary historical event, the attempted assassination of President Harry Truman in November of 1950 by two Puerto Rican Nationalists and the bloody shoot-out in the streets of Washington, D.C., that saved the president's life. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge, Jr., an experienced journalist and lawyer, AMERICAN GUNFIGHT is at once a groundbreaking work of meticulous historical research and the vivid and dramatically told story of an act of terrorism that almost succeeded. They have pieced together, at last, the story of the conspiracy that nearly doomed the president and how a few good mean, ordinary guys who were willing to risk their lives in the line of duty, stopped it. Hunter and Bainbridge are the first to report on the inner workings of this conspiracy; they examine the forces that led the perpetrators to conceive the plot. The authors also tell the story of men themselves, from their youth and the worlds in which they grew up to the women they loved and who loved them to the moment the gunfire erupted. Their telling commemorates heroism, the quiet commitment to duty that in some moments of crisis sees some people through an ordeal, even at the expense of their lives.

John Bainbridge, Stephen Hunter (Author), John H. Mayer (Narrator)

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Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series

The model for Meyer Wolfsheim from The Great Gatsby and Guys and Dolls' Nathan Detroit, Arnold Rothstein was an underworld genius, racketeer, rumrunner, political fixer, and criminal mastermind who, as F. Scott Fitzgerald observed, played 'with the faith of fifteen million people with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.' David Piertrusza unearths the canny way Rothstein fixed the 1919 World Series and unravels the mystery of Arnold Rothstein’s murder in November 1928 in a Times Square hotel room. Transporting listeners onto Jazz Age Broadway with its thugs, bookies, denizens of the race tracks, showgirls, political movers and shakers, and stars of the Golden Age of sports, this is a biography of the godfather of organized crime in America, who reigned supreme when the fast buck ruled and violence stalked the streets of Gotham.

David Pietrusza (Author), Grover Gardner (Narrator)

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Assassination Vacation

Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With "Assassination Vacation," she takes us on a road trip like no other--a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage. From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue--it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and--the author's favorite--historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are lighter diversions into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.

Sarah Vowell (Author), Conan O'brien, Dave Eggers, Jon Stewart, Sarah Vowell, Stephen King (Narrator)

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Chasing the Devil: My Twenty-Year Quest to Capture the Green River Killer

For eight years, Sheriff David Reichert devoted days and nights to capturing the Green River Killer - the most notorious serial killer in American history. He was the first detective on the case in 1982 and doggedly pursued it as the body count climbed to 49 and it became the most infamous unsolved case in the nation. Frantically following all leads, even as more bodies surfaced near the river outside Seattle, Sheriff Reichert befriended the victims families, publicly challenged the killer, and risked his own safety - and the endurance and love of his family - before he found his madman. But Reichert's hunt didnt end when he finally cornered a truck painter named Gary Ridgway. It would be yet another 11 haunting years before forensic science could prove Ridgway's guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. CHASING THE DEVIL is the gripping firsthand account of Reichert's relentless pursuit - a 21-year odyssey full of near-misses and startling revelations. Told in vivid detail by the man who knows the whole story - the man who has stared into the eyes of absolute evil - this is a page-turning real-life suspense story of unparalleled heroism.

David Reichert, Sheriff David Reichert (Author), Dennis Boutsikaris (Narrator)

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Between Good and Evil: A Master Profiler's Hunt for Society's Most Violent Predators

He was a pioneer in modern law enforcement, a trailblazing leader in the hunt for serial killers. But after decades of staring deep into the darkness, he entered a seminary to search for the good... BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL No one gets closer to evil than a criminal profiler, trained to penetrate the hearts and minds of society's most vicious psychopaths. And no one is a more towering figure in the world of criminal profilers than Roger L. Depue. Chief of the FBI Behavioral Science Unit at a time when its innovative work first came to prominence, he headed a renowned team of mind hunters that included John Douglas, Robert Ressler, and Roy Hazelwood. In a subbasement sixty feet under the Academy gun vault in Quantico, he broke new ground with analytical techniques and training programs that are still used today. After retiring from the FBI, he founded an elite forensics group that consulted on high-profile cases, including the Martha Moxley and JonBenet Ramsey murders, and the Columbine school shootings. But coming face-to-face with the darkest deeds human beings are capable of took a horrific toll. After suffering a devastating personal loss, Depue, on the brink of despair, walked away from the outside world and joined a seminary. For three years this was his safe haven, a place where he exorcised personal demons and found a refuge from terrifying memories of real-life monsters. And it was there, while counseling maximum security inmates, that he rediscovered the capacity for goodness in people, and made the decision to return to the world to resume his work. Here is Depue's extraordinary personal account, from growing up as a police officer's son to tracking down some of today's most brutal murderers. With its harrowing descriptions of human depravity and passionate call to fight against evil, BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL is both a riveting dispatch from the front lines of a war against human predators...and the powerful story of one man's journey between darkness and redemption.

Roger L. Depue, Susan Schindehette (Author), Paul Michael (Narrator)

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True Crime Audiobooks in Mystery, Thriller & Horror