I first heard about Dr Gwen Adshead when she was the lecturer for the BBC’s Reith Lectures. Her four talks on the problem of violence were so insightful that after I immediately put a reservation for a copy of her book: The Devil You Know. For me, the book and the talks complemented each other.… Read More Book Review: The Devil You Know by Gwen Adshead
I can’t remember exactly when, but a few years ago I listened to a BBC podcast called “The Missing Cryptoqueen”. It was about the OneCoin scam and it tried to track the origins of its missing founder – Ruja Ignatova. I enjoyed the podcast very much, but didn’t really follow what happened after so I… Read More Book Review: The Missing Cryptoqueen by Jamie Bartlett
It’s been two years, but I found another book that is a better alternative to Murder by Candlelight. I previously recommended Savage Appetites, but while that was a great book, it was very narrowly focused on female fans of true crime, while A Very British Murder take a more general look at the development of… Read More Book Review: A Very British Murder by Lucy Worsley
I’ve had this book on my TBR for quite some time, possibly because I really enjoyed his other book, The Devil in the White City (my Goodreads review); possibly because it’s got a link to Mrs McGinty’s Dead (my Goodreads review). Or maybe because of both these reasons. Thunderstruck is the tale of two men:… Read More Book Review: Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
I was looking through my Overdrive wishlist when I found this! A true crime story plus author biography mashup sounded interesting, especially since I enjoyed The Man Who Would Be Sherlock. In The Beautiful Cigar Girl, Stashower takes the reader through the murder of Mary Rogers and the literary career of Edgar Allen Poe. Mary… Read More Book Review: The Beautiful Cigar Girl by Daniel Stashower
Warren recommended this book to me and in his recommendation, said the book was “very disquieting”, which for me means that I’ll have to read it sooner or later. I first heard of the Elisa Lam case through the elevator game (The Ghost in My Machine did an excellent write up of the history of… Read More Book Review: Gone at Midnight by Jake Anderson
I haven’t taken part in a blog tour in years because I hate scheduling posts (and this tour is on Instagram!), but I made an exception for The Case of the Murderous Dr Cream because it’s historical true crime and I’ve never heard of Dr Cream before. Thomas Neill Cream was a Canadian born in… Read More Book Review: The Case of the Murderous Dr Cream by Dean Jobb
I got this book for a few reasons: 1) the cover is cool, 2) it’s a true crime unsolved mystery, and 3) the words “The Case Conan Doyle Couldn’t Solve” was printed prominently on the cover. Put all three together and I basically had to read the book. The Mile End Murder covers the murder… Read More Book Review: The Mile End Murder by Sinclair McKay
I bought this because I am a fan of the Golden Age of Mystery and I like true crime and this book fits into both these categories – it’s a collection of true crime stories written by authors from the Golden Age of Mystery. While Agatha Christie is not in this book, unlike Ask a… Read More Rereading: The Anatomy of Murder by The Detection Club
(A digression before I start the review: has anyone had book review drafts just disappear on them? I could have sworn I typed out the draft for the review of this book but it’s… just gone) The Five has had a lot of hype and all of it was deserved. It’s a portrait of five… Read More Book Review: The Five by Hallie Rubenhold