Making a Murderer, Spotlight, Serial… stories about the process of tracking down a crime—and of the writers, reporters, and editors who explain their own process of the retelling of the stories—are huge right now.

Long-form nonfiction can be a great way to get a behind-the-scenes look at not just the what and the why, but also the how. Check out some books that transcend traditional true-crime stories and get readers involved in the steps journalists took to research and report them.

Hunting Season by Mirta Ojito
This Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist humanizes immigration reform in this story that starts with a group of Long Island teens who attacked an immigrant from Ecuador, but she proceeds to tackle the overarching issue of immigrants, communities, and conflict. 

 

 

 

 

 

Ghettoside by Jill Leovy
Leovy, a reporter and editor for the Los Angeles Times, embedded herself with LAPD detectives for years to research this story about the sky-high murder rate in poor, African-American neighborhoods in the city.

 

 

 

 

 

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Go back to the roots of the genre with a disturbing classic from 1965. Capote was an early contributor to “new journalism”—long-form investigative reporting that borrows from novels—and his relationship with the two men accused of murdering a Kansas family informs the storytelling of the book.

 

 

 

 

The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
OK, so Rule isn’t a journalist, but it’s impossible to make a list of personal true-crime stories without this 1980 classic of the genre. In this 1980 page-turner, Rule (who goes on to become one of the most prolific and well-known writers in the genre) details how she discovered that Ted Bundy, her friend and coworker at a crisis hotline, was a serial killer.

 

 

 

 

 

The Book of Matt by Stephen Jimenez
Veteran reporter Jimenez spent 13 years researching a murder of a victim everyone thought they already understood: Matthew Shepherd. The gay college student, who was found beaten and tied to a fence in 1998, became the face of anti-gay bullying, but Jimenez—who is also gay—claims Shepherd’s murder was actually about his involvement in Colorado’s meth scene and paints a very different and very controversial picture of his killing.

 

 

 

 

 The Mad Sculptor by Harold Schechter
Reviewers cite the meticulous research that Schechter—a prolific true-crime author—put into this retelling of a young artist who committed a triple-murder in gritty 1937 New York.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Missoula by Jon Krakauer
This book about rape at the University of Montana is a consummate feat of reporting, and Krakauer chimes in at the end to talk about his research methods and some of his own ideas for mediating the problem.

 

 

 

 

 

Salvation on Sand Mountain by Dennis Covington
Covington gets highly involved in this exploration of a religious sect that handles snakes and the Alabama preacher charged with murder when his wife dies after a poisonous bite.

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Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!