Books like Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

A chilling, factual account of the 1959 shotgun murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, where four members were killed with no clear motive or clues.

In 1893 Chicago, Erik Larson weaves the story of visionary architect Daniel Burnham and the cunning serial killer H.H. Holmes, whose crimes unfolded against the backdrop of the World’s Columbian Exposition.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks follows the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells were taken in 1951 without her consent and later became the first immortal human cell line, HeLa, driving major scientific breakthroughs while raising questions of ethics, race, and medical exploitation.

A compelling overview of American history through the eyes and experiences of its women, workers, African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and the working poor.

After a May 1981 shooting in Savannah, John Berendt chronicles the city’s eccentric society, a murder trial, and the undercurrents of Southern culture in a nonfiction narrative that reads like a taut novel.

David Grann’s investigative narrative unravels the mystery of British explorer Percy Fawcett’s 1925 disappearance while he sought the legendary Lost City of Z beneath the Amazon’s dense jungle.

An engaging exploration of the 1854 London cholera outbreak and how Dr. John Snow’s mapping of the epidemic transformed public health, urban planning, and the science of disease transmission.

During World War I, women painted clock dials with radium, a glowing but toxic substance, leading to illness and a landmark workers’ rights struggle in America.

A captivating and haunting love story between two serial killers operating in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Ann Rule’s true‑crime biography exposes the chilling rise of serial killer Ted Bundy and the devastating realization she faced when she discovered the killer was her friend.

A case study of the Zodiac Killer's unsolved serial murders in California.

Acclaimed New Yorker writer and author of the breakout debut bestseller The Lost City of Z, David Grann offers a collection of spellbinding narrative journalism. Whether he's reporting on the infiltration of the murderous Aryan Brotherhood into the U.S. prison system, tracking down a chameleon con artist in Europe, or riding in a cyclone- tossed skiff with a scientist hunting the elusive giant squid, David Grann revels in telling stories that explore the nature of obsession and that piece together true and unforgettable mysteries. Each of the dozen stories in this collection reveals a hidden and often dangerous world and, like Into Thin Air and The Orchid Thief, pivots around the gravitational pull of obsession and the captivating personalities of those caught in its grip. There is the world's foremost expert on Sherlock Holmes who is found dead in mysterious circumstances; an arson sleuth trying to prove that a man about to be executed is innocent; and sandhogs racing to complete the brutally dangerous job of building New York City's water tunnels before the old system collapses. Throughout, Grann's hypnotic accounts display the power--and often the willful perversity--of the human spirit. Compulsively readable, The Devil and Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant mosaic of ambition, madness, passion, and folly.From the Hardcover edition.

Praise for Blood and Thunder"Kit Carson's role in the conquest of the Navajo during and after the Civil War remains one of the most dramatic and significant episodes in the history of the American West. Hampton Sides portrays Carson in the larger context of the conquest of the entire West, including his frequent and often lethal encounters with hostile Native Americans. Unusually, Sides gives full voice to Indian leaders themselves about their trials and tribulations in their dealings with the whites. Here is a national hero on the level of Daniel Boone, presented with all of his flaws and virtues, in the context of American people's belief that it was their Manifest Destiny to occupy the entire West."--Howard Lamar, Sterling Professor Emeritus of History, Yale University and editor of The New Encyclopedia of the American West"The story of the American West has seldom been told with such intimacy and immediacy. Legendary figures like Kit Carson leap to life and history moves at a pulse-pounding pace--sweeping the reader along with it. Hampton Sides is a terrific storyteller."--Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt"Hampton Sides doesn't just write a book, he transports the reader to another time and place. With his keen sense of drama and his crackling writing style, this master storyteller has bequeathed us a majestic history of the Old West."--James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Fathers and Flyboys"Blood and Thunder is a big-hearted book whose subject is as expansive as they come. Hampton Sides tackles it with naked pleasure and narrative cunning: In his telling, the vast saga of America's westward push has a logical center. The dusty town of Santa Fe becomes the nexus around which swirl the fortunes and strategies of a mixed set of serious overachievers, from Kit Carson, the original mountain man, to James K. Polk, the enigmatic president whose achievements, in the dreaded name of Manifest Destiny, were almost biblical in scope. Sides is alive to the exuberance and alert to the tragedy of the taking of the West." --Russell Shorto, author of Island at the Center of the World"For a huge percentage of us immigrant Americans (those whose ancestors arrived after 1492), Hampton Sides fills a gaping hole in our knowledge of American history--a vivid account of how 'The New Men' swept away the thriving civilizations of the Native Americans in their conquest of the West." --Tony HillermanA Magnificent History of How the West Was Really Won--a Sweeping Tale of Shame and GloryIn the fall of 1846 the venerable Navajo warrior Narbona, greatest of his people's chieftains, looked down upon the small town of Santa Fe, the stronghold of the Mexican settlers he had been fighting his whole long life. He had come to see if the rumors were true--if an army of blue-suited soldiers had swept in from the East and utterly defeated his ancestral enemies. As Narbona gazed down on the battlements and cannons of a mighty fort the invaders had built, he realized his foes had been vanquished--but what did the arrival of these "New Men" portend for the Navajo?Narbona could not have known that "The Army of the West," in the midst of the longest march in American military history, was merely the vanguard of an inexorable tide fueled by a self-righteous ideology now known as "Manifest Destiny." For twenty years the Navajo, elusive lords of a huge swath of mountainous desert and pasturelands, would ferociously resist the flood of soldiers and settlers who wished to change their ancient way of life or destroy them.Hampton...

Tim Cahill's *Buried Dreams* brings to life the brutal crimes of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jr., revealing the complex personality behind his twisted atrocities.

The untold story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. A pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler investigate a family mysteriously stricken bald, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner serving poisoned pies, and many others. Each case presents a deadly new puzzle and Norris and Gettler create revolutionary experiments to tease out even the wiliest compounds from human tissue. From the vantage of their laboratory it also becomes clear that murderers aren't the only toxic threat--modern life has created a kind of poison playground, and danger lurks around every corner.

A thrilling, psychological thriller as a pair of FBI agents investigates a serial murderer who is targeting the most powerful families in New York City.

A biographical case study of Lee Boyd Malvo, examining his psychology, criminal career, and role in serial murders and sniper incidents in the United States.

A psychological study of serial and mass murder, presenting case analyses that explore the mind of killers and the dynamics of mass killing.

A gripping biography that examines the lives of European serial murderers, the brutal violence they inflicted on prostitutes, and the trials and journalistic investigations that followed.

A gripping true crime story of serial killings by Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, featuring the author's investigative approach and examination of Victorian sexual tensions and fears.

Adam Selzer’s biography of H. H. Holmes reveals the Chicago serial killer’s use of the 1893 World’s Fair crowds to orchestrate a network of murders, drawing on unpublished primary sources for a vivid historical portrait.

From Ovid's Lycaon to Professor Lupin, from Teen Wolf to An American Werewolf in Paris, the lycanthrope, or werewolf, comes to us frequently on the page and the silver screen. These interpretations often display lycanthropy as a curse, with the afflicted person becoming an uncontrollable, feral beast during every full moon. But this is just one version of the werewolf-its origins can be traced back thousands of years to early prehistory, and everything from Iron Age bog bodies and Roman gods to people such as Joan of Arc, Adolf Hitler, and Sigmund Freud feature in its story. Exploring the role.