The 30 best true crime books of all time

John Carreyrou documents the rise and shocking collapse of the multibillion biotech startup Theranos in this riveting story of corporate fraud and ambition. In 2014, Theranos promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood testing both faster and easier. With the charismatic Elizabeth Holmes at the helm, and backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, the business was valued at more than $9 billion. The problem was, the technology didn’t work. 

Victoria Cilliers and her husband, British army sergeant Emilie Cilliers shared a life, a family, and a passion for skydiving. On Easter Sunday in 2015, while undertaking a parachute jump gifted to her by her husband, Victoria experienced every diver’s worst nightmare: her parachute failed to open. Despite sustaining serious injuries against the odds she survived, and her husband was arrested for her attempted murder. I Survived is Victoria’s extraordinary tale of courage and resilience, the story of a woman who experienced a living hell but made it through against the odds. 

Credit Suisse was once a 166-year-old reputable Swiss financial institution serving a high clientele. Then it collapsed, revealing the wider corruption and dirty scandals of the most wealthy and controversial leaders including drug dealers, dictators and former Nazi officers. The bank granted its executives lucrative bonus contracts and fleeced clients out of billions of dollars, to name just a few of their exploits. In Meltdown, Bloomberg investigative journalist, Duncan Mavin, exposes the corrupt decision-making made by a handful of men at the top, which ultimately led to disaster.

An epic true story of ambition, greed and hubris – the collapse of Greensill Capital is a billion pound scandal that shredded the reputation of a British Prime Minister. Lex Greensill disrupted a trillion dollar industry and drew in Swiss bankers, global CEOs, and world leaders, including former British Prime Minister, David Cameron. But a staid business model concealed dubious practices; Greensill made increasingly risky loans to fraudulent companies using other people’s money. With a globe-circling narrative full of scandal and intrigue, Pyramid of Lies reveals how the grubby world of shadow banking really operates.

From the rural communities ravaged by the impact of opioid addiction to the hallowed halls of some of the world’s most respected cultural and education institutions, the Sackler’s unsavoury legacy in America is undeniable. As compelling as a thriller, in the award-winning Empire of Pain Patrick Radden Keefe masterfully weaves a story of ambition, greed and secrecy and uncovers how the Sackler family made a fortune from other people’s pain and how they were allowed to get away with it. 

Cheng Chui Ping, an elderly noodle shop owner and grandmother, was once a mainstay of New York’s Chinatown. But, unbeknownst to almost all who knew her, the noodle shop was a front for one of America’s biggest people smuggling operations, operated by the unlikeliest of kingpins, Ping herself. Examining the broader human and economic impact of undocumented immigration in the United States through the story of Ping’s underground empire, The Snakehead is a stunning true-crime tale from expert storyteller, Patrick Radden Keefe. 

From forgers to money launderers to arms merchants and those on death row, this is a book about behaving badly. Award-winning and hypnotically brilliant New Yorker writer and author of Empire of Pain Patrick Radden Keefe takes readers on a gripping but also humane trip into the psyches of those who society would rather forget. With global reach and meticulous research, this is a bravura piece of journalism. 

Originally published as The Hard Sell, and now a major film on Netflix. 

In the early 2000s during the boom of painkillers, John Kapoor founded Insys Therapeutics. He had developed a novel formulation of fentanyl and he was determined to make the most of this innovation. While the drug was only approved for a small group of cancer patients, Kapoor employed a variety of deceptive techniques to ensure his drug flew. That is, until insiders reached their breaking point and blew the whistle. With colourful characters and true suspense, The Hard Sell lays bare the pharma playbook and looks at how opioids are sold at the point they first enter the national bloodstream – in the doctor’s office. 

Based on the Netflix documentary of the same name, in I Am A Killer Ned Parker and Danny Tipping get underneath the skin of some of America’s killers and find out what motivated them to commit their crimes. By gaining exclusive access to inmates in the high-security prisons they now call home, speaking to the perpetrator’s families, and examining police and court documents, the authors have created a fascinating, intimate portrait of some of America’s most destructive and dangerous criminals.

Gomorrah is the story of Italy’s other Mafia, the Camorra. Known by insiders as ‘the System’, the Camorra exerts a malign grip on cities and villages along the Neapolitan coast is the deciding factor in why Campania has the highest murder rate in all of Europe. To get inside this deadly organisation, Roberto Saviano disappeared into the Camorra and witnessed at close range its audacious, sophisticated, and far-reaching corruption that has paralyzed his city.

On 10 October 1986, the bodies of two young girls were found in a Brighton park. The girls were nine-year-olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway who had gone out to play the day before. Evidence mounted against a local man Russell Bishop, but a shock trial result saw him walk free. Three years later, Graham Bartlett was working for Brighton CID when a seven-year-old was abducted and left to die. She survived, and connections were made to Russell Bishop. Will the police put him away this time? With unique access to the officers involved in the investigation this is the fascinating inside story of what became a thirty-two year fight for justice.

The book that inspired the hit Netflix documentary Making A Murderer. Steven Avery spent eighteen years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. In 2003, he was exonerated after new DNA testing revealed that another man had committed the crime. Only two years later, Steven Avery was arrested again for the brutal murder of Teresa Halbach – a photographer who went missing several days earlier. Had the so called "Inncocent Man" turned into acold blooded killer? Or was he wrongly accused, again . . .

Carol Ann Lee's account of the White House Farm murders was the inspiration for ITV's series White House Farm. Nevill and June Bamber, their daughter Sheila and her two young sons were discovered shot to death in their home. All the windows and doors of the farmhouse were secure. The Bambers' son, 24-year-old Jeremy, alerted the police after apparently receiving a phone call from his father who told him Sheila had 'gone berserk' with the gun. At first it appeared to be a straightforward case of murder-suicide, but a dramatic turn of events was to disprove the police's theory and Jeremy was convicted of killing his entire family.

Bestselling author Peter James has done plenty of in-depth research into the lives of the Brighton and Hove police when researching his novels, and they are just as gritty as the real thing. Here, Peter and his friend Graham Bartlett, once a long-serving detective in the city once described as Britain’s ‘crime capital’, have written a gripping account of the city’s most challenging cases. From Sussex’s worst non-terrorist murder to the brutal execution of a surfer, this is the dangerous inside story of policing and the toll it takes on the force.

1977, the Thunderbird Motel. J. J. Wedick and Jack Brennan, two fresh-faced FBI agents, were about to go undercover. Their target: the charismatic, globe-trotting con man Phil Kitzer, who was responsible for swindling (and spending) millions of dollars. One problem: Wedick and Brennan weren’t trained for the job. As the young agents became entangled in Kitzer’s outrageous schemes, they also grew to respect him – even to care for him. And Kitzer began to think of Wedick and Brennan as best friends. Chasing Phil is the story of an incredible round-the-world manhunt, a charismatic con man and a friendship that changed crime forever.

Michael Maisey was excited the day he was locked up in the notorious Feltham Young Offenders Institute; he was going to be a legend to all his mates. The sixteen-year-old was in for attempted murder. He was innocent of this particular crime but amongst the violent and dangerous young men on his wing he was about to learn exactly how far he’d go to survive. In Young Offender we see what turned a good kid into a wanted criminal. For five years Michael was in and out of Feltham, on a downward spiral of crime and drug and alcohol addiction. The road to recovery would mean changing himself in the deepest possible ways.

When law student Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is asked to work on a death row hearing for convicted murderer and child molester Ricky Langley, she finds herself thrust into the tangled story of his childhood. As she digs deeper and deeper into the case she realizes that, despite their vastly different circumstances, something in his story is unsettlingly, uncannily familiar. The Fact of a Body is both an enthralling memoir and a groundbreaking, heart-stopping investigation into how the law is personal, composed of individual stories, and proof that arriving at the truth is more complicated, and powerful than we could ever imagine.

You may not wish to think about it, but one day you or someone you love will almost certainly appear in a criminal courtroom. You might be a juror, a victim, a witness or – perhaps through no fault of your own – a defendant. Whatever your role, you’d expect a fair trial. I’m a barrister. I work in the criminal justice system, and every day I see how fairness is not guaranteed. In The Secret Barrister, I want to share some stories from my daily life to show you how the system is broken, who broke it and why we should start caring before it’s too late.

The Kray twins ruled Sixties London underworld for more than a decade. As gang lords they were among the most powerful and feared men in the city. Their reign of terror ended on 8 March 1969 when they were sentenced to life for the East End gangland murders with which their names have become synonymous. Compiled from a series of interviews with Fred Dinenage from inside their prison walls, Our Story explodes the myths surrounding the Kray twins as they set the record straight in their own words.

Now a major TV miniseries starring Andrew Garfield, Jon Krakauer raises provocative questions about faith-based violence in Under The Banner of Heaven. In July 1984, Dan and Ron Lafferty entered the home of their brother Allen and killed Allen’s wife and daughter. They insisted they were commanded to kill by God. Examining the origins of the Mormon faith, along with the events that led the brothers to kill, this gripping work of non-fiction illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behaviour.

Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were enjoying a Sunday together, completely unaware that they had been poisoned with the deadly nerve agent Novichok. Hours later both were found slumped on a park bench close to death. Following their attempted murders on British soil, Russia was publicly accused by the West of carrying out the attack, marking a new low for international relations between the two since the end of the Cold War. The Skripal Files tells the full story behind the Salisbury Poisonings, one of the most shocking incidents to occur in Britain in recent memory.

San Pedro is Bolivia's most notorious prison. Small-time drug smuggler Thomas McFadden found himself on the inside. He ended up making a living by giving backpackers tours of the prison – he became a fixture on the backpacking circuit and was named in the Lonely Planet guide to Bolivia. When he was told that for a bribe of $5000 his sentence could be overturned, it was the many backpackers who'd passed through who sent him the money. Written by lawyer Rusty Young, Marching Powder – sometimes shocking, sometimes funny – is a riveting story of survival.

The rise of George Villiers from minor gentry to royal power seemed to defy gravity. Tthe young gallant enraptured James, Britain’s first Stuart king. For a decade, Villiers was at the king’s side – right up to James’s death in March 1625. Almost immediately, Villiers’ enemies accused him of poisoning the king. A parliamentary investigation was launched, but the charges came to nothing, and were relegated to a historical footnote. Now, new historical scholarship suggests that a deadly combination of hubris and vulnerability did indeed drive Villiers to kill the man who made him. In The King’s Assassin, Benjamin Wooley examines this remarkable story. 

From journalist Chris Blackhurst, Too Big to Jail unveils how HSBC facilitated mass money laundering schemes for brutal drug kingpins and rogue nations – and thereby helped to grow one of the deadliest drug empires the world has ever seen. It brings together an extraordinary cast of politicians, bankers, drug dealers, FBI officers and whistle-blowers, and asks what price does greed have? Whose job is it to police global finance? And why did not a single person go to prison for facilitating the murderous expansion of a global drug empire?

Maud West ran her detective agency in London for more than thirty years, having started sleuthing on behalf of society’s finest in 1905. Her exploits grabbed headlines throughout the world but, beneath the public persona, she was forced to hide vital aspects of her own identity in order to thrive in a class-obsessed and male-dominated world. And – as historical researcher Susannah Stapleton reveals – she was a most unreliable witness to her own life. Who was Maud? And what was the reality of being a female private detective in the Golden Age of Crime?

Bringing together ground-breaking forensic dicoveries, including vital DNA evidence and gripping historical detective work, Naming Jack the Ripper constructs the first truly convincing case for identifying the world's most notorious serial killer. In 2007, Jack Edwards bought a shawl believed to have been left beside the body of Jack the Ripper’s fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes. The shawl was not only proven to be genuine and stained with Catherine Eddowes’ blood, the killer’s DNA was also discovered. This evidence would allow Edwards to finally identify Jack the Ripper.

For decades, private forensic search expert Peter Faulding has helped investigators to discover the secrets of the country’s most harrowing and perplexing crime scenes. Now, for the first time, Peter is telling his life story. From a childhood exploring caves and tunnels to becoming a pioneer of search and rescue techniques and working on some of Britain’s most high-profile murder cases, Peter’s extraordinary story of a life and career spent helping others will have you on the edge of your seat. 

In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Here, Snowden reveals for the very first time how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it.

True crime in the American heartland. Under the Banner of Heaven is a riveting account of Mormon fundamentalism and renegade prophets. Brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty insist they were commanded to kill by God. Jon Krakauer‘s investigation into the murder of a mother and her child is a meticulously researched, bone-chilling narrative of polygamy, savage violence and unyielding faith. An incisive look inside isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities in America, this gripping work of non-fiction illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behaviour. 

In the early morning of 15 November 1959, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith broke into the home of Herbert Clutter. On discovering there was no money in the house, the two men brutally killed Herb, his wife and his two younger children. Skilfully researched and powerfully evocative, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood offers insight into the nature of American violence.

This grimly funny and devastating account of prison life tells the story of those on the wrong side of the cell doors. It is written by Neil ‘Sam’ Samworth, who for eleven years was a prison officer at HMP Manchester, guarding gangsters, serial criminals and those who had just made bad decisions. This page-turning tale, which takes in riots, feuds, fights and injustices, is a gripping exposé of dysfunctional life behind the bars in modern Britain.

Gripping and eye opening, The Girl for the Job is an exciting account of life as a female undercover cop by Danni Brooke. For over a decade Danni was one of the most effective female undercover cops in the UK. Whether she was infiltrating organized crime gangs or disrupting drug supply lines, Danni played the innocent Essex girl, fooling even the most suspicious villains, using her quick wits to keep her out of trouble. In her honest, warm and gripping memoir, Danni also reveals why she left the police, how she found a new career and why the thrill of covert work still pulls her into private investigations.

In 2003, art critic Richard Dorment answered a telephone call from a stranger. The caller was Joe Simon, an American film producer and art collector. He was ringing at the suggestion of David Hockney, his neighbour in Malibu. A committee of experts called the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board had declared the two Warhols in his collection to be fake. He wanted to know why and thought Dorment could help. This call would mark the beginning of an extraordinary story that would play out over the next ten years and would involve a cast of characters straight out of fiction.