Any true crime fans out there?

[XanaDUer]

I just found this forum and am so happy it exists!

So, any true crime folks on DU?

Please share your fave TC books, if so.

[MichaelHarris]

1. I used to read them

on camping trips and stuff then I got to skeert. I read all the big ones and when I lived in Spokane I lived 2 streets in front of that guy who was croaking all those women. Those were freaky times, you drive down the hill looking for bodies.

[Sequoia]

11. Was that the Green River Killer?

I lived in Spokane too back in 1976.

[NGU]

2. Stranger beside me by Ann Rule

She knew and worked beside Ted Bundy while writing in a newspaper about his crimes. She has no idea what he was. At one point she worried about her daughter getting killed and Ted promised her that her daughter wouldn't get hurt. Hindsight added lots to that statement. It is a great book.

[musette_sf]

3. I love true crime

Got to watch Forensic Files as often as possible!

Off the top of my head --
"Cruel Doubt"
"Fatal Vision"
"Serpentine"
"Blood and Money"
"The Family" (sorry, couldn't resist)

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Do you watch Cold Case Files on A&E also?

I have seen all the Forensic Files. That is a great show.

[musette_sf]

6. No

Actually I prefer Forensic Files. Cold Case just doesn't get to me the way FF does. Maybe it's the cheesy way the FF announcer injects those creepy pauses when he talks :-)

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. Yes, I do like his voice

and the way he controls his emotions.

[XanaDUer]

8. Yes

even the repeats...

[dryan]

13. Reading....

Serpentine again. I read the book when it came out back in the late 70s/early 80s and its still compelling.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Me me me

I have read everything Ann Rule has written. She is the master, IMO. Her best are Stranger Beside Me and Small Sacrifices.

And she wrote a book about a murder that happened only a couple miles from where I live. I knew all about that crime and her book was very accurate.

[MuseRider]

7. Yes and I wish I had

never started them. They are very interesting but they always make me feel so creepy for a while after I read them. I got interested in them shortly after a friend of mine was found bludgeoned to death and they never found out who did it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. When I was in college

in Emporia, a guy we knew was murdered. Two local guys killed him but they did it in Colorado so we didn't get many details of the crime. Then one of those true detective magazines did a story and published pictures. It was graphic and very gruesome (he was stabbed in the neck with a screwdriver 17 times). But that's when I got hooked on true crime.

BTW, this happened in the mid 70s and I heard a few years ago that these guys have been out of prison for over 10 years now.

[dryan]

12. Love True Crime....

I can't get into 'fictional' mysteries and most true crime stories are more involved. I felt that Ann Rule was slipping with her last couple books, but Green River, Running Red is a masterpiece.

[BurtWorm]

14. I used to work at True Detective magazine

and have edited and proofed trashy Pinnacle crime books. I fell into it accidentally. It was my first job in NY. I loooooooved it! I've also written some true crime pieces for TD and other detective magazines, but I haven't done it in years.

[NJCher]

15. used to

Not so much anymore. I think my interest waned after I read Hare's book on sociopaths and how some killer's brains are wired differently. I think my question was answered: I wanted to know why or how anyone could do these things. Hare provided that answer.

Still, I watch CourtTV a lot and if a good crime book came along, I might give it a shot.

Have read all the books mentioned on this thread.


Cher

[McFlyGuy]

16. Bring Down The House

bringing down the house is a great book, about the blackjack card counters. great stuff.

[Hamlette]

17. Under the Banner of Heaven

which is really about polygamy but has lots of true crime in it.

I'm reading one right now called True Story which will be availble June 1 (I have the advance copy.) by Michael Finkel. It's about a man who killed (allegedly) his wife and 3 kids in Oregon. Finkel was a NYTimes Magazine reporter who was fired when he made up a composite character for one of his articles. The book is both the story of Finkel's horror at what he did and the guy/murders.

It's the first true crime I've read in some time. I was addicted for years. Blood and Money and In Cold Blood should top anyone's list of true crime books.