Last Updated on March 6, 2025 by Jella Erhard
Looking for twisty and dark stories? Then read the most anticipated new true crime books. Get spooked by new scary serial killer true crime books and some of the most disturbing true crime novels coming this year.
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Must-Read Twisty & Dark New True Crime Books
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Looking for some of the most thrilling new true crime books that will keep you sitting on the edge of your seat? You’re at the right place. We collected the most gripping and twisty true crime books that are essential to read to any true crime fans.
You’ll find here the most fascinating and scary true stories written by detectives, journalists, and forensic psychiatrists who have first-hand experience in dealing with some of the most dangerous criminals.
RELATED: Best New Thriller & Mystery Books To Read
You’ll also be able to explore some of the most famous true crime stories of the past, modern murder mysteries, and brilliant con artists, and get inside the minds of twisted cult leaders. So get ready for some thrilling and mysterious stories, light up your favorite true crime candles and settle in for some of the most terrifying reads of your life.
21. Searching for Savanna: The Murder of One Native American Woman and the Violence Against the Many by Mona Gable, April 2023
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Synopsis:
A gripping and illuminating investigation into the disappearance of Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind when she was eight months pregnant, highlighting the shocking epidemic of violence against Native American women in America and the societal ramifications of government inaction.
In the summer of 2017, twenty-two-year-old Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind vanished. A week after she disappeared, police arrested the white couple who lived upstairs from Savanna and emerged from their apartment carrying an infant girl. The baby was Savanna’s, but Savanna’s body would not be found for days.
The horrifying crime sent shock waves far beyond Fargo, North Dakota, where it occurred, and helped expose the sexual and physical violence Native American women and girls have endured since the country’s colonization.
With pathos and compassion, Searching for Savanna confronts this history of dehumanization toward Indigenous women and the government’s complicity in the crisis.
Featuring in-depth interviews, personal accounts, and trial analysis, Searching for Savanna investigates these injustices and the decades-long struggle by Native American advocates for meaningful change.
Searching for Savanna is a heart-wrenching exploration of the tragic disappearance of Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind and it sheds light on the deeply disturbing epidemic of violence targeting Native American women in America and the urgent need for societal awareness, action, and justice.
20. Little, Crazy Children: A True Crime Tragedy of Lost Innocence by James Renner, June 2023
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Synopsis:
For readers of Ann Rule and Gregg Olsen, a riveting new true crime book from the acclaimed author of True Crime Addict and creator/host of the podcasts True Crime This Week and The Philosophy of Crime, as he explores the unsolved murder of 16-year-old Lisa Pruett in the real-life town of the bestselling novel Little Fires Everywhere for a painstakingly researched account of a senseless and heartbreaking tragedy and the people who were pulled into its aftermath.
In September of 1990, in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, sixteen-year-old Lisa Pruett, a poetry lover and member of a church youth group, was on her way to a midnight tryst with her boyfriend, when she was viciously stabbed to death only thirty feet from the boy’s home.
The murder cast a palpable gloom over the upscale community and sparked accusations, theories, and rumors among Lisa’s friends and peers. Together they wove a damning narrative that circled back to a likely “weird” high school outcast Kevin Young.
Without a shred of evidence, the teen was arrested, charged, and tried for the crime. His eventual acquittal didn’t squelch the anger and outrage among those who believed that Kevin got away with murder.
With a fresh perspective and painstaking research culled from police files, court records, transcripts, uncollected evidence, and new interviews, James Renner reconstructs the events leading up to and following that heartbreaking night.
What emerges is a portrait of a community seething with dark undercurrents—its single-minded authorities, protective status-conscious parents, and the deeply peer-pressured teens within Lisa’s circle.
Who had the capacity for such unchecked violence? What monsters still lurk in the dark? After more than thirty years, questions like these continue to fester among the community of Shaker Heights, Ohio, still deeply scarred by wounds that remain hidden, unspoken, and unhealed.
Little, Crazy Children is a gripping exploration of the unsolved murder of sixteen-year-old Lisa Pruett, delving into the haunting aftermath and the chilling secrets that lurked within the seemingly idyllic community of Shaker Heights, Ohio, as Renner meticulously pieces together the evidence, unearths hidden truths, and exposes the dark undercurrents of a tragedy that continues to haunt the town even after three decades.
19. Still Life with Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains by Alexa Hagerty, March 2023
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Synopsis:
An anthropologist working with forensic teams and victims’ families to investigate crimes against humanity in Latin America explores what science can tell us about the lives of the dead in this haunting account of grief, the power of ritual, and a quest for justice.
“Absorbing . . . multifaceted and elegiac . . . Still Life with Bones captures the ethos that drives the search–often tireless and against the odds–for truth.”–The New York Times
“Exhumation can divide brothers and restore fathers, open old wounds and open the possibility of regeneration–of building something new with the ‘pile of broken mirrors’ that is memory, loss, and mourning.”
Throughout Guatemala’s thirty-six-year armed conflict, state forces killed more than two hundred thousand people. Argentina’s military dictatorship disappeared up to thirty thousand people. In the wake of genocidal violence, families of the missing searched for the truth.
Young scientists joined their fight against impunity. Gathering evidence in the face of intimidation and death threats, they pioneered the field of forensic exhumation for human rights.
In Still Life with Bones, anthropologist Alexa Hagerty learns to see the dead body with a forensic eye. She examines bones for marks of torture and fatal wounds–hands bound by rope, machete cuts–and also for signs of identity: how life shapes us down to the bone.
A weaver is recognized from the tiny bones of the toes, molded by kneeling before a loom; a girl is identified alongside her pet dog. In the tenderness of understanding these bones, forensics not only offers proof of mass atrocity but also tells the story of each life lost.
Working with forensic teams at mass grave sites and in labs, Hagerty discovers how bones bear witness to crimes against humanity and how exhumation can bring families meaning after unimaginable loss. She also comes to see how cutting-edge science can act as ritual–a way of caring for the dead with symbolic force that can repair societies torn apart by violence.
Weaving together powerful stories about investigative breakthroughs, histories of violence and resistance, and her own forensic coming-of-age, Hagerty crafts a moving portrait of the living and the dead.
Still Life with Bones is a haunting and deeply poignant exploration of the work of forensic teams and grieving families as they uncover the truth behind crimes against humanity in Latin America, delving into the power of science to reveal the stories of the dead, provide evidence of mass atrocities, and offer a path towards justice and healing in the face of unimaginable loss and violence.
18. We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America by Roxanna Asgarian – March 2023
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Synopsis:
The shocking, deeply reported story of a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of six children—and a searing indictment of the American foster care system.
On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and several children at the bottom of a cliff beside the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators soon concluded that the crash was a murder-suicide, but there was more to the story: Jennifer and Sarah Hart, it turned out, were a white married couple who had adopted the six Black children from two different Texas families in 2006 and 2008.
Behind the family’s loving facade, however, was a pattern of abuse and neglect that went ignored as the couple withdrew the children from school and moved across the country. It soon became apparent that the State of Texas knew very little about the two individuals to whom it had given custody of six children—with fateful consequences.
In the manner of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family and other classic works of investigative journalism, Roxanna Asgarian’s We Were Once a Family is a revelation of vulnerable lives; it is also a shattering exposé of the foster care and adoption systems that produced this tragedy.
As a journalist in Houston, Asgarian became the first reporter to put the children’s birth families at the center of the story. We follow the author as she runs up against the intransigence of a state agency that removes tens of thousands of kids from homes each year in the name of child welfare, while often failing to consider alternatives.
Her reporting uncovers persistent racial biases and corruption as children of color are separated from birth parents without proper cause.
The result is a riveting narrative and a deeply reported indictment of a system that continues to fail America’s most vulnerable children while upending the lives of their families.
We Were Once a Family is a profoundly impactful and meticulously researched exposé that delves into the heartbreaking story of a murder-suicide and adoption systems in America and the devastating consequences that result from their failures.
17. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann – April 2023
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Synopsis:
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.
On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell.
They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia.
The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.
But then … six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers.
The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness.
As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death–for whomever the court found guilty could hang.
The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers.
Grann’s recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O’Brian, his portrayal of the castaways’ desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller.
As always with Grann’s work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder is one of the most thrilling true crime novels filled with adventure, and suspense that immerses its readers in a hidden world of survival, mutiny, and the pursuit of justice on the high seas.
16. Don’t Say a Thing: A Predator, a Pursuit, and the Women Who Persevered by Tamara Leitner – June 2023
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Synopsis:
In a powerful true-crime memoir, an Emmy Award–winning journalist seeks closure in a decades-long series of crimes and freedom from her own personal demons. In April 1999, reporter Tamara Leitner woke to an active crime scene outside her Arizona apartment.
Her neighbor had been sexually assaulted by a man who would later be identified as Claude Dean Hull II, a serial rapist who escaped justice for decades. New identities. New states. New victims—more than one hundred suspected across the country and thousands more victimized in myriad ways.
Tamara’s twenty-year compulsion to follow the investigation began. She needed to question a failed system. She needed to know the women whose lives were irrevocably altered. And she needed to face the root of her obsession with Hull and his crimes.
In interviewing, befriending, and profoundly connecting with Hull’s survivors, Tamara crafts a unique true-crime narrative.
It not only reveals the struggles of the justice system to help victims of sexual violence but explores how these resilient women—and Tamara herself—strove to reclaim their power in the wake of indelible trauma.
Don’t Say a Thing is a must-read for true crime fans who are looking for poignant and powerful memoirs about investigative journalism.
15| In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial by Mona Chollet – New Historical True Crime Book – March 2022
Looking for a historical nonfiction with a true-crime flair? Or are you into witch hunts and witch trials and books about witches? Then you should check out this thought-provoking read and learn about the dark details of the infamous witch trials of the past and learn about how it still affects women today all over the world.
If you’re planning to read new books about witches and are into nonfiction and trial-related books then you’ll love this nonfiction. This new true crime book will help you understand how and why witchcraft is still popular and important and why it symbolizes independence and female rebellion to millions of women all over the globe.
If you’re looking for witch trials-inspired new true crime books then read In Defense of Witches.
14| Killer Collections: Dark Artifacts from True Crime Hardcover by Paul Gambino – New True Crime Book, June 2022
Get ready to explore some of the most spooky and infamous personal archives, showcasing murder weapons, creepy diaries, police files, and even real crime scene photography. If you’re a die-hard true crim fan you want to check out this book.
It’s filled with never before seen objects and all kinds of true crime related collections from the most well-known serial killers and murderers. You’ll be able to read about historical objects like a 18th Century hangman’s noose and Lizzie Borden and the circular saw to modern time true crime artifacts like Charles Manson’s cremation ashes.
If you’re looking for unique new true crime books then don’t miss Killer Collections.
13| American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America’s Jack the Ripper by Daniel Stashower – New Serial Killer True Crime Book – September 2022
Can’t get enough of serial killer true crime books? Or are you into Jack The Reaper stories? Then American Demon will surely entertain you. This brilliant mystery true crime book reads like a novel but it is in fact based on the true story of Cleveland’s most notorious serial killer the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.
Never heard of him before? Don’t worry because New York Times bestselling author and Edgar Award-winner Daniel Stashower will fill you in on all the creepy and terrifying details while keeping you on the edge of your seat.
If you’re looking for new true crime books about serial killers then pick up American Demon.
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12| All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell by Hayley Campbell – New Mystery True Crime Book – August 2022
This deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and about the people – morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners – who work in it and what led them there. If you’re interested in learning more about what really goes on in the background during true crime investigations then this is the book for you.
You’ll get a thrilling insight into these workers’ life and learn about why they choose their unusual professions and how it affected their lives and offer readers a fascinating look into the psychology of Western death.
Looking for new true crime books with behind the scene information then put All The Living And The Dead on your TBR.
11| Butler to the World: The Book the Oligarchs Don’t Want You to Read by Oliver Bullough – New Historical True Crime Book – May 2022
Looking for modern political true crime books that explore the dark sides of politics? Then Butler To The World is the right book for you. This fascinating book is written in an investigative journalistic style and it explores how Brittain facilitates some of the most ruthless and dangerous billionaire criminals.
If you’re interested in learning more about how the world’s worst super-rich is getting supported by one of the most powerful countries and its dependencies then pick up this book.
Butler To The World is one of the most brilliant new true crime books to read especially if you’re interested in politics and economy.
10| Trailed by Kathryn Miles – New Mystery True Crime Book – May 2022
Are you into murder mysteries? Then Trailed is the right choice for you. This beautifully written true crime book reads like a novel and it’s about the unsolved murders of an undetermined number of young women, all by the same serial killer, who got away.
Skilled journalist Kathryn Miles has been obsessed with the death of Lollie Winans and Julie Williams for many years. Their unsolved murder in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park in 1996 has been trying to find an answer to who might have committed the crime. This intimate, page-turning and brilliantly reported new true crime book is a call to justice and a searching and urgent plea to make the wilderness a safe space for women.
If you’re interested in unsolved mystery new true crime books then read Trailed.
9| Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases by Paul Holes – New Biography True Crime Book – April 2022
This chilling memoir is written by the detective who found The Golden State Killer and it’s about his personal experiences during the investigations of America’s toughest cold cases. If you’re into murder mysteries and biographies that read like novels then Paul Holes spine chilling new true crime memoir is for you.
You’ll not only get an insight into the minds of detectives but learn about why he chose this profession and what it was like to hunt for some of the most dangerous monsters.
If you’re looking for new true crime books about cold cases and serial killers then check out Unmasked.
8| Jimmy the King: Murder, Vice, and the Reign of a Dirty Cop Book by Gus Garcia-Roberts – New Nonfiction True Crime Novel – May 2022
If you’re into dirty cop stories and want to read a thrilling true crime story about the one of the country’s largest police departments In 1979 and learn about the gruesome slaying of a thirteen-year-old boy riveted the suburbs of Suffolk County, New York then pick up this chilling read.
This dark story sheds light on people who use their badges and power for corruption.
Jimmy The King is a good choice for those who are looking for True Crime nonfiction books about dirty cops.
7| Bone Deep by Charles Bosworth, Joel Schwartz – New Murder-Mystery True Crime Book – February 2022
This new murder mystery true crime book is a first-ever insider’s account of the murder of Betsy Faria and the wrongful conviction of her husband, Russell. Their story is told by Joel J. Schwartz, the defense attorney who fought for justice on behalf of Russell Faria.
The gruesome death of Betsy Faria in 2011 has been a mystery for many years. Her brutal murder was left unresolved for another 10 years until Joel J. Schwartz recognized the real killer.
If you want to read chilling new true crime books about murder mysteries then pick up Bone Deep.
6| Con/Artist: The Life and Crimes of the World’s Greatest Art Forger Book by Giampiero Ambrosi and Tony Tetro – New Con Artists True Crime Book – November 2022
Do you enjoy reading about some of the most brilliant con artists? Then check out the story of the world’s most renowned art forger who reveals the secrets behind his decades of painting like the masters. You get to know the dark secrets of an art world that is far more corrupt than we ever knew while providing an art history lesson wrapped in sex, drugs, and Caravaggio.
This book explores Tetros’ brilliant cons and you’ll get insights into some of the most famous stories like the one from 2019 when it was revealed that Prince Charles received into his collection a Picasso, Dali, Monet, and Chagall, insuring them for over 200 million pounds to later find out the paintings were forged by Tetro.
If you enjoy reading true crime books about con artists then Con/Artist should be on your TBR.
5| When a Killer Calls: A Haunting Story of Murder, Criminal Profiling, and Justice in a Small Town by John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker – New Serial Killer True Crime Book – February 2022
If you’re looking for a haunting story about a small town murder and want to read more about criminal profiling then this gripping read is for you.
This fascinating new true crime book is written by John Douglas the legendary FBI criminal profiler who is also a talented writer and #1 New York Times bestselling author. His book was the inspiration for Netflix’s Mindhunter. His new book is a chilling journey inside the mind and crimes of Larry Gene Bell, one of the most dangerous serial killers Douglas confronted, and the desperate effort to identify and catch him.
When A Killer Calls is one of the most anticipated new small town serial killer true crime books of 2022.
4| All the Lies They Did Not Tell: The True Story of Satanic Panic in an Italian Community by Pablo Trincia – New True Crime Book – August 2022
If you’re looking for a truly unique true crime book then you should check out All The Lies They Did Not Tell. It’s one of the weirdest and darkest books you’ll ever read and is the true story of the ‘Devils of the Bassa Modenese’ the most notorious Satanic Panic investigation in the history of Italy.
The book explores the crimes that happened in Bassa Modenese in 1997 when parents were accused of belonging to a satanic sect that performed sex rituals under the aegis of beloved local priest Don Giorgio Govoni. After a six-year-old boy was questioned by authorities, an investigation started and within a year fifteen more children with similar tales were transferred out of the Bassa region of Italy to protected locations.
This gripping book explores the accusations, kidnappings, torture, and murder that shook the region and tries to uncover what really happened.
All The Lies They Did Not Tell is one of the most fascinating new true crime books about satan, religion set in Italy.
3| In Two Minds: Stories of murder, justice and recovery from a forensic psychiatrist by Dr. Sohom Das – New Psychological True Crime Book – August 2022
If you enjoy not only true crime books and are interested in psychiatry then this fascinating book written by forensic psychiatrist Dr. Das will surely knock your socks off.
In The Minds is one of the most Shocking, eye-opening, and grimly fascinating true crime books of 2022 that will introduce you to the true stories, patients, and cases that have characterized a career spent treating mentally disordered offenders.
Read about some of the most heart-breaking and bizarre cases and get an insight into dangerous minds with the help of a skilled forensic psychiatrist.
In Two Minds is a perfect choice for those who are looking for new true crime books about forensic psychiatry.
2| Helltown: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer on Cape Cod by Casey Sherman – New Biography True Crime Book – July 2022
Are you fascinated by Charles Manson’s story and looking for similar true crime books? Then read about Cape Cod’s most feared serial killer Tony Costa.
Tony Costa was the leader of a hippie group in 1969. His charm and charisma helped him gather a large group and stay out of suspicion for a long while. But as more bodies were discovered he quickly became the investigators’ key suspect.
This immersive and shocking new true crime book reveals the secrets of a notorious serial killer and unspools the threads connecting Costa, Vonnegut, and Mailer in the seaside city that played host to horrors unlike any ever seen before.
Hell Town is one of the most anticipated new true crime books about unsolved murders and serial killers.
1| Cults: Inside the World’s Most Notorious Groups and Understanding the People Who Joined Them by Max Cutler, Kevin Conley – New Cult True Crime Book – July 2022
Are you fascinated by cult true crime books and want to know what really goes on inside them and inside the cult leaders’ heads? Then read this gripping new true crime book.
Thanks to this detailed and fascinating book you’ll also get a greater insight into how cults choose their followers and what would make someone join them. Learn about some of the most infamous cult leaders and how they manipulated people and how the things we hold most sacred can be twisted into the lowest form of malevolence.
Cults will let you explore some of the most infamous cult-related mysteries and murders of our time.
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