True crime books

An inmate I knew fairly well while I was working in Illinois prison and he was serving time for rape was later paroled and went on to commit at least 10 murders in southern Illinois, western Kentucky, and southeast Missouri. He is currently serving life sentences in Illinois. Two books were written about him:

In Cold Pursuit: My Hunt for Timothy Krajcir, the Notorious Serial Killer, by Paul Echols and Christine Byers

Hunted in the Heartland: a Memoir of Murder, by Bonney Hogue Patterson

Paul Echols is the detective who solved the case. I liked his book better.

Another inmate I knew well while he was incarcerated in Illinois was a medical doctor named Michael Swango. At the time I knew him, he had committed at least four murders for which he was never charged. He was serving time for attempted murder for poisoning co-workers. He went on to commit at least 35 murders, most by poisoning. The FBI estimate is 60 or more murders. He is currently serving life sentences in a federal prison in Colorado.

Blind Eye: How the Medical Establishment Let a Doctor get away with Murder, by James Stewart

Both of these men fit the Ted Bundy serial killer type - intelligent, personable on the surface, and manipulative psychopaths.

Nazi Doctors; Medical killing and the psychology of genocide, Robert Lifton.
Kinda sorta true crime ... but an excellent essay on how and why educated people can be brought to such actions, and the genocidal mentality/rationale.
Not irrelevant to today's political climate in the US.

The Butchered Man by Harriet Smart
Pax by Sarah Pennypacker
Travels With Charlie by John Steinbeck
The Woman on the Orient Express by Lindsay Jane Ashford
The Light of Fireflies by Paul Pen

I could go on but I'll stop here.

Good reading!

The Big Sleep, Lady in the Lake, the Glass Key, the Maltese Falcon, the Dane Curse, The Thin Man, the moonstone, crime and punishment, smillas sense of snow, the murder of Roger Ackeoyd, the blind barber, I The Jury,

If by good you mean entertaining then the Jack Reacher series by Lee Childs is a fun read. If you want something heavier then you might want to try some non-fiction, reality is usually stranger and heavier than fiction.

The Poet, Micheal Connelly

I suggest House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. A favourite of mine.

It's horror, kind of sort of. And a very complex book.

Recommended.