Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    True Crime: Real-Life Stories of Abduction, Addiction, Obsession, Murder, Grave-robbing, and More
    Unavailable
    True Crime: Real-Life Stories of Abduction, Addiction, Obsession, Murder, Grave-robbing, and More
    Unavailable
    True Crime: Real-Life Stories of Abduction, Addiction, Obsession, Murder, Grave-robbing, and More
    Ebook295 pages4 hours

    True Crime: Real-Life Stories of Abduction, Addiction, Obsession, Murder, Grave-robbing, and More

    By In Fact Books

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The real-life stories collected here reflect not only the myriad ways in which a law can be broken, but also the countless ways in which crime whether in the news or close to home can be experienced. In these diverse and compelling narratives, award-winning journalists investigate the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords and the unsolved lynching of Claude Neal; an identity thief finds herself confronted by one of her victims; a triple homicide rattles a high school swim team; a young adventurer supports her travels by smuggling Peruvian pre-Columbian artifacts; a woman struggles to live free of the ex-boyfriend who kidnapped and tortured her; and more. While appealing to true crime audiences, this unique mix of personal essays and award-winning long form newspaper narratives will also appeal to creative writing and journalism programs, as well as to readers of memoir and crime fiction.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIn Fact Books
    Release dateJul 12, 2013
    ISBN9781937163150
    Unavailable
    True Crime: Real-Life Stories of Abduction, Addiction, Obsession, Murder, Grave-robbing, and More

    Related to True Crime

    Related ebooks

    Murder For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Murdered By A Monster On Christmas Eve

      Dec 14, 2020

      It should have been a magical time for the Petersons. It was Christmas 2002 and school teacher Laci Peterson only had a month to go before giving birth to her first child. Laci and her husband, Scott, had the holiday season to prepare for their littl

      3 min read

    • Article

      Cruel Messages

      May 26, 2022

      Cruel Messages
      4 min read

    • Article

      Mom Gets Life In Prison And Her Boyfriend Gets Death In Torture, Murder Of Boy

      Jun 7, 2018

      LOS ANGELES - Jennifer Garcia can't keep her mind from drifting to little Gabriel. Late at night and in the silence of her early-morning drives, the first-grade teacher thinks of her former student. She assigns each child in her classroom a number -

      4 min read

    • Article

      Killer curiosity

      Apr 29, 2021

      Killer curiosity
      3 min read

    • Article

      Police Say One Man Is Tied To Multiple Killings In Missouri And Kansas

      Nov 9, 2021

      Perez Reed is facing charges of murder and assault in shootings that occurred in the St. Louis County area. The gun used in those attacks has been tied to other killings in St. Louis and Kansas.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Toolbox Of Horrors

      Aug 27, 2020

      Toolbox Of Horrors
      3 min read

    • Article

      Finally Free

      Aug 20, 2020

      Finally Free
      2 min read

    • Article

      Twisted Triangle

      Apr 16, 2020

      Twisted Triangle
      4 min read

    • Article

      An Aneurism of Axe Murders: On ‘The Man from the Train’

      Oct 9, 2017

      You can’t help but read these murders as a parable of alienation. The lone drifter stalking the country by train, itself a mode of transport from a bygone era, to literally smash apart families with an instrument that evoked America’s timbered fronti

      6 min read

    • Article

      From cheertloeader CHILD KILLER?

      Apr 2, 2020

      From cheertloeader CHILD KILLER?
      10 min read

    • Article

      Most Wanted

      May 12, 2022

      Standing alone at the bus stop after school, the two young boys, then 10 and 8, peered down the road and wondered why their parents hadn’t come to pick them up as usual. Usually, once they’d been dropped by the bus, their mum Quee, also known as QC,

      3 min read

    • Article

      Everest Death Toll Rises To 10 This Season After 4 More Climbers Found Dead

      May 24, 2017

      The bodies were discovered in tents by Nepalese Sherpas at Camp IV, the camp closest to the summit of the world's tallest mountain. The victims have not yet been identified.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Timeline Of A Mystery

      Mar 19, 2020

      In their first documented meeting, Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow, a follower of Chad’s doomsday writings, speak together on a podcast about preparing for the end of the world. Lori’s ex-husband Charles is fatally shot by her brother Alex. Shortly af

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Living Victims

      May 8, 2020

      The Living Victims
      7 min read

    • Article

      Name That KILLER

      May 7, 2020

      When sex workers in Dallas, Texas, started showing up dead with their eyeballs missing, terror spread through the city. Many people are fascinated by eyes, but none as much as the Eyeball Killer. Charles Frederick Albright was born in Texas in 1933.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Monster Serial Killer

      Dec 27, 2020

      When authorities raided the home of this serial killer, they found a chilling map marked with ominous ‘X’ symbols. The mass murderer, who was at large in the US in the ’70s and ’80s, committed his atrocious crimes in the wild woods of Anchorage, Al

      1 min read

    • Article

      Inside the Turpins' Home in Texas Before They Moved to Perris, Calif.

      Jan 21, 2018

      RIO VISTA, Texas _To neighbor Ricky Vinyard, the Turpin family seemed odd from the moment they arrived at the end of his remote dirt road in this small town 50 miles south of Fort Worth. "When they moved in, they were really mysterious people. They d

      3 min read

    • Article

      Two Slain Men Were Drug Traffickers

      Jan 10, 2021

      THE two men who were shot, beheaded and set alight had worked for alleged drug lord Yaganathan Pillay, also known as Teddy Mafia, until they switched loyalties. This was according to a witness to this week’s triple killing in Shallcross, Durban, whic

      2 min read

    Reviews for True Crime

    4/5

    6 ratings10 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      True Crime is a collection of true short stories, almost all of which are about a particular crime with one or two that are more philosophical thoughts on crime. Many of these stories are written by the people who lived them, although a few are instead written by journalists. As the slightly over-dramatic subtitle indicates, the content of these stories varies widely.

      I requested this book because I like non-fiction and since I’m trying to read through the Dewey Decimal system, I was going to get to a true crime book eventually. When it came to actually reading it, however, I apprehensive that the stories would be too violent, too gruesome, and too melodramatic. I was pleasantly surprised on all counts. As a true crime story, of course some of the stories make you contemplate how human beings can do such horrible things to each other. It’s not going to be an entirely happy book. There were two stories I thought were too much (one about child murder and one about a historical lynching which included unnecessary detail), but the majority of these stories were moving without being over the top.

      Although I’d like to review the stories individually, thirteen stories would make for far too long of a review, so I’ll settle for identifying some themes among the stories I liked and the ones I didn’t. The ones I didn’t like included material that I personally felt was too terrible (the child murder), too detailed (the lynching), or too bizarre (a weird musing on ears and their relationship to violence). But the majority of the stories were very thoughtfully and decently written. They were still tough reads, but many of them gave you fascinating insights into human behavior and an appreciation for how the worst circumstances can bring out the best in people.

      At the end of the day, I don’t think true crime stories are my cup of tea. They involve too much unpleasant suspense as you wait for something terrible to happen and I finished reading these stories feeling a bit down. However, I thought this collection, for the most part, handled a tough subject very well.

      This review first published on Doing Dewey.
    • 3/5
      A collection of true-crime essays by various authors, this book contains a variety of subjects, many of which have never been written about before. While, as typical in a collection of essays, some are better than others, on the whole these pieces are well-written and well-researched. I may not have always agreed with an author's point of view, but the book as a whole was a gripping read.
    • 4/5
      I like true crime and I found these stories compelling. They were well written. Man's inhumanity to man is always fascinating and disturbing but I would have liked to have heard more information from the crime scenes themselves and the investigators thoughts and reactions about them. Overall an interesting read.
    • 4/5
      True confession: I had to take my time reading True Crime. The violence was best in small doses. Of the thirteen stories Gabrielle Giffords stayed with me the longest because it was the play by play of the victims were doing before the shooting. Like a slow motion camera detailing the day to day-ness of their ordinary lives. All of the stories stuck with me in little ways. I think they represented the senselessness of our society.Lee Gutkind has compiled a collection of true crime stories. Interestingly enough, there are thirteen stories. Thirteen being a supposedly unlucky number is a good parallel for the unlucky victims in each story. Gutkind claims his brush with crime made him question his own capabilities. Could he commit murder? In the end we as readers don't really know the answer, but does Gutkind?
    • 3/5
      I think the 'True Crime: Real-Life Stories of Abduction, Obsession, Murder, Graverobbing, and More' title is misleading here. These aren't the typical true crime stories of the nonfiction genre. The majority are about criminal behavior in general or the effects of crime. Some of these stories read more like articles you'd find in Atlantic Monthly, rather than a true crime story you'd find in a nonfiction book. None of them fit the intensity the title implies.It's difficult for me to rate this collection. Quite frankly, some didn't hold my interest at all. It wasn't the writing, as all were well written. The content simply felt more like a journalist account or observation, and I was expecting a gritty crime read.On the other hand, a few of these stories stood out and captivated me. For instance, the stories 'Regret' by Vance Voyles and The Death Of A Family by David Updike both left a lasting impression for different reasons. Those two stories easily rate 5 stars for me. If you're a true crime fan, I suggest you put aside your expectations before reading this one.
    • 5/5
      This is an excellent little collection of true crime stories from small town newspapers and crime reporters. The writing is superb, humorous, and interesting.
    • 4/5
      Origami...tidy, little story. With the cop knowing and judging her I anticipated more drama from the story. I wasn't really disappointed, just surprised.Leviathan...great story, hated the ending though. I know why it took the turn it did at the end, I just wasn't happy about it.Gabrielle G...didn't want to read this story at first, thought it would be too political and stuffy. That was not the case. I couldn't put the book down during this story. The second by second breakdown of events really put you in the middle of things.Regret...good story, really makes you stop and think.Grave Robber...finally a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Story of an antiquities dealer and her travels. Well written.Apology...quick little story, interesting read.Parrish, Rawlings...sad story about gang life in suburban America. Written in beautiful, descriptive prose.The Addict...not sure if this was a true story or not (I guess that's the whole idea behind true crime though), but it sure was good. The story of a woman addicted to a man who kidnaps and rapes her.Girl, Fighting...great story, one of my favorites. It was about a female police officer training to protect herself on the job and how she had to put some of that training to use.The Death of...another great story about an interracial family whose wife and children are murdered and whose husband is convicted of the crimes. I got the idea the author may have thought he was innocent, but there really isn't anything in the story to support this.Speaking of Ears...interesting read. All about ears, as the title suggests. A story about Mike Tyson biting off Holyfield's ear, about a chimp who ripped a woman's face off, but left the ears?! What do your ears mean to you? This story was so engaging I had to do my own research on the internet regarding these two stories b/c though I had heard about them I hadn't seen them.Origins...terribly tragic, yet a well written story (or stories, one blended into the next, to tell the story of one man and how he came to murder.Spectacle...another great story, though horrific in nature about a lynching 80 or 90 years ago.Erik Larson interview...which it hadn't been so long since I'd read a book of his. I really enjoyed the insight in the interview though.
    • 3/5
      The book is a compilation of stories relating to crime issues more than focusing on a true crime from start to finish. This was the first thing that surprised me because I was thinking it would be more crime scene related and it was more like magazine articles on far ranging topics on events related to crime. A number of these authors have been recognized for their writing with awards and prizes. Some are looking to make their name. It covers a far ranging field from abductions, to lynching so quite a lot to offer in variety of misdeeds. One of the more famous incidents covered is a take on events leading up to the Gabby Giffords mass shooting.I personally would have liked more crime scene stories start to finish in the typical true crime book format, but many of these stories were interesting with a different take in their presentation.
    • 4/5
      This was not what I expected. Most true crime books are about violent crimes, usually murder, and the title indicated this would be the same. And certainly there are murder stories here, but there are also stories of identity theft, smuggling priceless archaeological artefacts, Mike Tyson and the ear-biting incident with Evander Hollifield, etc. So true-crime fans bewarned: this may not be your cup of tea.The stories, being by different authors, were of varying quality, and some held my interest more than others. I think I liked the second one, "Leviathan," the best -- though it frustrated me that there was no ending to that story, no conclusion. However, as these accounts are supposed to be nonfiction, my guess is that it's still an unsolved case.I'd say this book was worth reading, though I'm probably not going to read it a second time.(I got this free from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.)

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      There is a slow, careful nature to the first stories in"True Crime" that sets the tone for a collection that is not lurid, though often deeply disturbing. Instead of merely being a recounting of terrible violence, this book a reflection on crime and criminals, how these touch an individual and form him or her in ways unimaginable, what they say about human nature.Once I came to the middle of "True Crime" I had a very difficult time setting it aside. The writing is, for the most part, very good, and the stories are compelling. I could not stop thinking about two of them: a young gang member murdered by two men, one of whom was his best friend, and a husband who killed his pregnant wife and two young children. The writing for these is exceptionally good, providing just enough information that you understand how the crime came to be committed - but no easy and obvious answers and explanations, because there are none. I thought for a long time after finishing these stories - about human nature, about that moment when a person decides he's going to commit a crime, about how we think about violence and the way in which a violent death affects not only the family members and close friends but everyone who is touched by it, who knew the victims or the perpetrator. All readers will do a lot of reflecting too, I'm sure.All the stories here are good, but not all are remarkable; I found myself skimming only one, a rather curious essay that begins with the infamous Mike Tyson ear-biting incident.My greatest objection was to the lack of photos. Readers are immersed so intensely in an incident, yet provided with no images to connect with the stories.