True crime lover, please meet my friend, Historical Fiction Fan. Historical Fiction Fan, let me introduce True Crime Lover. You two have a lot in common! You both like facts. You both enjoy learning something when you read. You both seek to understand, whether it’s an individual, a motivation, an event, or a certain time period in history. Here are a sampling of excellent books you could read together, and both enjoy!
Around the true story of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the 1840s, Margaret Atwood has created an extraordinarily potent tale of sexuality, cruelty and mystery. At age 15/16, Grace Marks was convicted of killing her employer and his mistress with a fellow member of “the help”, James McDermott. Grace’s trial was highly publicized across Canada, the US, and Europe – “the Amanda Knox of her time.”
A dazzling work of historical fiction, based on true events, about two women who seem the most unlikely to ever meet: Alice, a Korean war survivor and translator for the American forces in Seoul and Marilyn Monroe, who is visiting Korea on a four-day USO tour. Moving and mesmerizing, The Starlet and the Spy is a beautiful portrayal of unexpected kinship between two very different women, and of the surprising connections that can change, or even save, a life.
A 19th century tale of social status, mystery and murder in which 16-year-old Victoria Robbins goes to extraordinary lengths to give up her kleptomania, a penchant she shares with neighbor and accused murderess, Lizzie Borden. In her quest to prove Lizzie Borden innocent, Victoria loses old friends, makes questionable new ones and finds her fiercest enemy resides within her own skin. Sprinkled throughout the text are actual newspaper clippings of the infamous Borden case and trial.
When her work on a string of savagely killed corpses drags Audrey into the investigation of a serial murderer, her search for answers brings her back to her own sheltered world. The story’s shocking twists and turns, augmented with real, sinister period photos, will make this dazzling, #1 New York Times bestselling debut from author Kerri Maniscalco impossible to forget.
A thrilling novel of love, loyalty, and espionage, based on the incredible true story of Elizabeth Bentley, a Cold War double agent spying for the Russians and the United States.
1963: Reeling from the death of her mother and President Kennedy’s assassination, Catherine Gray shows up on Elizabeth Bentley’s doorstep demanding answers to the shocking mystery she just uncovered about her family. What she doesn’t expect is for Bentley to ensnare her in her own story of becoming a controversial World War II spy and Cold War informer…