by @WndrWhit, curator of HOWLS Book Club nominees for October 2023’s “Truth is Scarier Than Fiction” category
Because it’s time we had some nonfiction in this place! These books will make you second guess whether you locked up for the night as you’re falling asleep.
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.
Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called “the Golden State Killer.” Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.
At the time of the crimes, the Golden State Killer was between the ages of eighteen and thirty, Caucasian, and athletic—capable of vaulting tall fences. He always wore a mask. After choosing a victim—he favored suburban couples—he often entered their home when no one was there, studying family pictures, mastering the layout. He attacked while they slept, using a flashlight to awaken and blind them. Though they could not recognize him, his victims recalled his voice: a guttural whisper through clenched teeth, abrupt and threatening.
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Framed by an introduction by Gillian Flynn and an afterword by her husband, Patton Oswalt, the book was completed by Michelle’s lead researcher and a close colleague. Utterly original and compelling, it is destined to become a true crime classic—and may at last unmask the Golden State Killer. (StoryGraph)
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Some (maybe just me) consider McNamara to be the matriarch of all True Crime blogs/podcasts. She masterfully assisted detectives, such as Paul Holes, to catch the Golden State Killer. The book is broken into three parts (all HOWLers rejoice): the manner in which the killer hunted and terrorized his victims, McNamara’s unrelenting pursuit of the Golden State Killer, and the aftermath of McNamara’s death and how her efforts contributed to the unmasking of the Golden State Killer.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence. (StoryGraph)
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All good little bibliophiles from Alabama (like myself) know and love Truman Capote and Harper Lee. I adore their friendship and camaraderie. I admire Lee’s courage to become an ally and defend those who others in our state might shun, especially considering the time period in which she lived.
While some speculate Capote solely wrote To Kill A Mockingbird, there’s no doubt that their collaboration, through their friendship and masterful storytelling abilities, have produced several important literary works. When Capote encountered difficulties interviewing the townspeople of Holcomb, Kansas, Lee stepped in and became his researcher, getting to know the people who were close to the victims. The book tells the stories of both the victims and the killers.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds–a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium.
Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.
The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both. (StoryGraph)
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I have tried to watch a few documentaries on Holmes and can’t get through them because they freak me out. He was a real life monster. I find it easier to read horror than watch it because I can filter out what I imagine in my head. Also, I don’t feel like I received the greatest History education, so I really enjoy anything that teaches me about certain time periods in the United States’ past.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.
In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes such as Al Spencer, “the Phantom Terror,” roamed – virtually anyone who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. They infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.
A true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history. (StoryGraph)
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This is another work of nonfiction that sheds light on a time in US history with murdery aspects. I’ve not read it yet, but it’s been on my TBR for years.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt’s sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.
It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the soul of pampered self-absorption; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. (StoryGraph)
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Another staple in a Southern bibliophile’s beloved library, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil reveals how we all try to keep secrets that everyone gossips about behind closed doors. After reading this book, I visited Savannah to experience the setting. It was everything Berendt describes, and more. The “more” being Paula Dean’s restaurant. HOWLS field trip, anyone?
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
Bonus: Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar
In the summer of 1988, the mutilated bodies of several missing girls begin to turn up in a small Maryland town. The grisly evidence leads police to the terrifying assumption that a serial killer is on the loose in the quiet suburb. But soon a rumor begins to spread that the evil stalking local teens is not entirely human. Law enforcement, as well as members of the FBI are certain that the killer is a living, breathing madman–and he’s playing games with them. For a once peaceful community trapped in the depths of paranoia and suspicion, it feels like a nightmare that will never end.
Recent college graduate Richard Chizmar returns to his hometown just as a curfew is enacted and a neighborhood watch is formed. In the midst of preparing for his wedding and embarking on a writing career, he soon finds himself thrust into the real-life horror story. Inspired by the terrifying events, Richard writes a personal account of the serial killer’s reign of terror, unaware that these events will continue to haunt him for years to come.
A clever, terrifying, and heartrending work of metafiction, Chasing the Boogeyman is the ultimate marriage between horror fiction and true crime. Chizmar’s “brilliant…absolutely fascinating, totally compelling, and immediately poignant” (C.J. Tudor, New York Times bestselling author) writing is on full display in this truly unique novel that will haunt you long after you turn the final page. (StoryGraph)
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You might know him from Gwendy’s Button Box that he coauthored with the King himself. I haven’t read this one yet, but a metafiction horror written by an author mentored by Stephen King has to be good. Also, this is another book about murder in the 80s. Why were the 80s so murdery? Maybe because forensic DNA analysis didn’t become a thing until the late 80s?
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
And The Winner Is…
Out of these six books, HOWLers voted to read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Discussion starts on October 30th, and you can chat with us about it by joining the Discord!
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