“If there is one thing more than another of which the average man likes to read the details,” the Chicago Tribune once noted, “that thing is a first-class murder with the goriest of trimmings.”
The Tribune’s observation could have been made yesterday—or at any point in the last decade. In fact, it was published more than 140 years ago, in November 1880, proving that our insatiable appetite for crime stories is nothing new.
Accounts of real-life crimes, the criminals responsible, and their victims have become today’s guilty pleasure. True crime is one of the hottest genres in book publishing. Investigations of cold cases and famous crimes are fodder for countless podcasts. And is there a notorious serial killer, bank robber, or art thief who has not been the subject of a movie, documentary, or mini-series?
The best true crime does more than serve a helping of murder and mayhem with “the goriest of trimmings.” It makes us think about what drives some people to break the law, and how society deals with those who kill or harm others. “We instinctively want to discover the ‘who,’ ‘what,’ ‘when’ and ‘where’ so we can find out what makes criminals tick,” media reporter Marc Berman noted in a recent issue of Forbes magazine. “We enjoy unraveling the mystery. We revel in the drama and the suspense. And, of course, we want to see justice served.”
True accounts of historical crimes offer an additional dimension. They transport readers to distant times and places, with manhunts and courtroom battles to inject color and drama into the narrative. They expose the morality—and, more often, the immorality—of the times, stripping away the good-old-days veneer to present a truer picture of what life was like in the past. They explore how police investigations, forensic science, and the justice system have evolved and assess whether they were up to the task of punishing the guilty.
Travel back in time with seven of the best historical true crime books published in 2024.
The Bishop and the Butterfly
By Michael Wolraich
Union Square & Co.
Published February 6, 2024
The 1931 murder of Vivian Gordon may have been the final straw for New York City’s corrupt Tammany Hall political machine. Her death helped to expose a decades-old network of bribes and kickbacks that enriched insiders, from contractors and beat cops to judges and city officials. Gordon, a sex worker and madam, had reached out to former judge Samuel Seabury—the squeaky-clean “Bishop” of the book’s title, who was investigating police shakedown rackets—shortly before her body was dumped in a Bronx park. New York governor Franklin Roosevelt, eager to distance himself from the taint of Tammany in his quest for the presidency, was among those convinced the timing of her murder was no coincidence. Wolraich’s gripping account exposes how one woman’s death toppled a corrupt regime and transformed a city.
The Infernal Machine
by Steven Johnson
Crown
Published May 14, 2024
How did the invention of dynamite in the 1860s spur the development of forensic science and help to create modern detective agencies like the FBI? Who better to connect the dots than Steven Johnson, host of the acclaimed documentary series How We Got to Now, and author of books on science and true crime. This is a fast-paced, fascinating exploration of how American law enforcement, with the New York Police Department in the lead, matched wits with anarchist bombers in the early years of the twentieth century. The authorities’ efforts to intercept or defuse early dynamite bombs—known as “infernal machines”—and to identify and arrest the terrorists planting them laid the foundations for the surveillance and data analysis systems deployed by today’s national security agencies.
Shadow Men
by James Polchin
Counterpoint Press
Published June 11, 2024
Did Walter Ward, the wealthy scion of a New York bakery empire, get away with murder? That’s the mystery Polchin explores in this brilliant recreation of a case of trial-by-newspaper. In 1922, after the body of a young drifter was found at a roadside, Ward confessed to the crime. He claimed he had been accosted by a gang of “shadow men”—blackmailers—and shot the victim in self-defense. Rumors that Ward was targeted because he was a homosexual made the case a Jazz Age sensation. The Daily News, New York’s feisty tabloid, demanded that Ward be prosecuted to prove there wasn’t one justice system for the rich and another for the poor. This engrossing account explores how wealth, power, and privilege can tip the scales of justice.
The Incorruptibles
by Dan Slater
Little, Brown and Company
Published July 16, 2024
Before the Mafia became the kings of organized crime, Jewish crooks dominated New York’s underworld. Their base was the city’s overcrowded and downtrodden Lower East Side, a hotbed of crime and “an incubator of delinquency” where gangs ruled. By the early 1900s, Jews from Eastern Europe had muscled aside older bands of Irish thugs, and formed some of the most dangerous of the early organized crime groups. This first-rate, engrossing book chronicles the rise of Arnold Rothstein, a bookmaker and underworld financier who was powerful enough to fix the 1919 World Series, alongside the efforts of wealthy Jewish community leaders who recruited a fearless reformer, Abe Schoenfeld—leader of a crime-busting police squad known as the Incorruptibles—to rein in vice and restore the image of the city’s Jews as law-abiding citizens.
Keeping the Faith
by Brenda Wineapple
Random House
Published August 13, 2024
It was a battle over what’s taught in American schools, with science and freedom of speech locked in an epic struggle against religious fundamentalism and censorship. Sound like Florida in 2024? Try small-town Tennessee a century ago. In this timely book, Wineapple deftly recreates the 1925 prosecution of schoolteacher John T. Scopes, who introduced Darwin’s theories to his high school science class in defiance of a state law that prohibited the teaching of human evolution. The trial made headlines across the country, and each side fielded a champion. William Jennings Bryant, a three-time candidate for president, denounced “the poisonous influence of an unproven hypothesis” while Clarence Darrow, the renowned advocate of civil liberties, defended Scopes and science. A sobering reminder that history repeats itself.
Eden Undone
by Abbott Kahler
Crown
Published September 24, 2024
Abbott Kahler’s latest foray into true crime could have been titled Death in Paradise. In 1929, with fascism on the rise, a German couple fled to an uninhabited island in the Galápagos. Press coverage of their back-to-nature lifestyle attracted a second couple. A self-proclaimed baroness, with a volatile temper and two lovers in tow, joined them, with a plan to transform the utopia into a tourist destination. USA Today has declared Kahler—who has previously written The Ghosts of Eden Park and other bestsellers as Karen Abbott—a master of “sizzle history,” and this riveting book crackles with suspense as tensions rise and the desolate island proves to be too small for this motley crew. With its eccentric characters and exotic locale, this real-life murder mystery ticks all the boxes.
Firebrands
by Gioia Diliberto
University of Chicago Press
Published October 30, 2024
Prohibition outlawed the manufacture, importation, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States at the beginning of 1920, the year women won the right to vote in national elections. So it’s fitting that women played key roles in the imposition, enforcement, evasion, and repeal of the crackdown on booze. Diliberto turns a spotlight on four women—a temperance activist, a federal prosecutor, a silent film star who ran New York speakeasies, and a socialite who helped repeal the restrictions in the early 1930s. The ban on booze, she demonstrates, did more than split the nation into camps of Wets and Drys and build the underworld empires of Al Capone and other gangsters—it showed how women could wield their new political power.
