These true-crime chronicles portray courageous crime-fighters and illuminate crimes that vary from murder to art-world scandals, stoking our endless curiosity, horror, schadenfreude, and compassion.
Bad to Blue: The True Story of a Chinatown Gangster Turned NYPD Detective. By Michael Moy. Blackstone.
Moy gave up and concealed his allegiance to the transnational Fuk Ching gang and joined the NYPD, a fateful decision that was fraught with danger as he served with distinction for 25 years.
Bear Witness: A Crusade for Justice in a Violent Land. By Ross Halperin. Norton/Liveright.
In Nueva Suyapa, one of the poorest and most dangerous barrios in the Honduran capital, American sociologist Kurt Ver Beek and Honduran schoolteacher Carlos Hernández were fed up with the fear that gripped their community, so they formed a secret group to help end the violence and corruption.
The Boy from Tiger Bay: A True Story of Murder, Betrayal, and a Fight for Justice. By Ceri Jackson. Amazon/Little A.
On February 14, 1988, 20-year-old Lynette White was brutally murdered in Cardiff, Wales. Five men were arrested, but some had alibis and DNA evidence at the scene wasn’t a match. Just the same, the prosecution convicted three of the “Cardiff Five.” Within four years, it was all upended.
Chasing Evil: Shocking Crimes, Supernatural Forces, and an FBI Agent’s Search for Hope and Justice. By Robert Hilland and John Edward. St. Martin’s Essentials.
Beyond working the notorious John Smith serial killer case, FBI agent Robert “Bob” Hilland served at Ground Zero, deployed to Afghanistan, investigated corruption in Guyana, and even snagged the Michael Vick confession. Standing beside Hilland every step of the way was John Edward, a notorious medium and Hilland’s most trusted secret adviser.
The Devil Wears Rothko: Inside the Art Scandal That Rocked the World. By Barry Avrich. Post Hill.
Avrich shines a light on the historic art crime that brought about the closure of the Knoedler Gallery, the oldest and most prominent gallery in New York, recounting how the gallery’s president, Ann Freedman, facilitated the sale of counterfeit paintings by Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, and others to unsuspecting wealthy collectors.
L.A. Coroner: Thomas Noguchi and Death in Hollywood. By Anne Soon Choi. Third State.
True-crime fans will know the name of medical examiner Thomas Noguchi, tagged “coroner to the stars” because he was involved with the autopsies of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Sharon Tate, Natalie Wood, William Holden, Marilyn Monroe, and Janis Joplin. Choi delves into the many controversies surrounding Noguchi and tells his personal story.
Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers. By Caroline Fraser. Penguin.
Fraser investigates the rise of serial killers in the 1970s and ’80s, linking this alarming spike—from double digits in the 1940s and ’50s to as many as 768 in 1980—to heavy pollution from lead smelting in the areas of the country where some of the most violent and prolific killers grew up, including Dennis Rader (BTK), Richard Ramirez (the Night Stalker), and Ted Bundy.
Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home. By Gregg Olsen. Amazon/Thomas & Mercer.
In 2005, Shasta Groene was eight years old in Wolf Lodge Bay, Idaho, when Joseph Duncan invaded her family’s home and killed her mother, her brother, and her mother’s boyfriend before kidnapping Shasta and her brother Dylan. In the seven weeks that followed, Shasta endured numerous assaults and witnessed her brother experience similar horrors before Duncan brutally murdered him. Olsen describes all that Groene experienced.
The Practice Run: How a Failed Art Heist Provided a Blueprint for the World’s Largest Art Robbery. By Frederick J. Fisher. 2025. Rowman & Littlefield.
When a young, charismatic man entered the Hyde, a small museum in rural Glens Falls, New York, in 1981, director Fisher was hesitant to accept his gifts, as Paul Stirling Vanderbilt’s declarations of bestowing funds on the Hyde were mixed with oddly specific security inquiries. What follows is the story of two art-world crimes: the one that almost was and the one that remains officially unsolved.
Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines. By Matthew Gavin Frank. Pantheon.
Frank did not intend to report on a true-crime story when he began researching the worldwide personal submersible community. But the murder of journalist Kim Wall in a small submarine by a longtime member of that informal group could not be ignored, and so he threads the story of her efforts to cover the competition between Danish inventors into a larger tale about the allure of pushing the limits on underwater engineering and adventure.
V Is for Venom: Agatha Christie’s Chemicals of Death. By Kathryn Harkup. 2025. Bloomsbury.
Agatha Christie had a wonderful way with plots and poisons, according to former chemist Harkup, who follows the acclaimed “A Is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie” with this presentation of 14 more letters in the toxicology ABCs and the Christie tales that showcased the poisons. Poison was Christie’s preferred method of dispatching her victims, and her “toxic choices were perfect,” according to Harkup, who details how Christie came to her in-depth knowledge by serving as a pharmaceutical dispenser during WWI and WWII.
This article was originally published in Booklist Reader, the magazine for library patrons, from the American Library Association’s nationally distributed book review publication, Booklist.
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