Book & Documentary Reviews

What sets this book apart from standard true crime is McNamara's literary approach. She writes with genuine empathy for victims while maintaining the rigor of investigative journalism. Her chapters on individual survivors are devastating and necessary—she gives names and stories to people often reduced to statistics.

The book is also remarkably prescient about genetic genealogy, the technique that would ultimately identify Joseph DeAngelo. McNamara understood before most that DNA databases held the key to cold cases.

Published posthumously (McNamara died in 2016), the book was completed by her husband Patton Oswalt and researchers Paul Haynes and Billy Jensen. The seams occasionally show, but the core work represents true crime writing at its finest—compassionate, rigorous, and purposeful.

Mindhunter offers an insider's view of how behavioral profiling evolved from an experimental technique to a standard investigative tool. Douglas's case studies—from the Atlanta Child Murders to the Green River Killer—demonstrate how profiling can direct investigations and how it sometimes fails.

The book is compelling but should be read critically. Douglas writes himself as more central to cases than documentation sometimes supports. The certainty he expresses about profiling techniques has been challenged by subsequent research showing profiling's limitations.

That said, the interviews with convicted killers remain valuable primary sources. Douglas's conversations with Ed Kemper are particularly chilling and informative. For understanding how investigators think about serial crime, this remains a foundational text.

The series makes genuine efforts to humanize Dahmer's victims and criticize the systemic failures that enabled his crimes—particularly the police's dismissal of Glenda Cleveland's concerns and their return of Konerak Sinthasomphone to Dahmer.

However, the show's approach raises ethical questions. Victims' families weren't consulted and expressed distress at reliving trauma without consent. The dramatization inevitably turns real suffering into entertainment, regardless of intent.

Evan Peters's portrayal is technically impressive but contributes to true crime's tendency to make killers fascinating while victims remain abstractions. Despite episodes dedicated to victims, Dahmer remains the center of the narrative.

The show sparked important conversations about true crime ethics and victim exploitation. Whether that justifies the show's existence is a question viewers must answer for themselves.

No other true crime book offers this perspective: Rule worked alongside Bundy at a suicide hotline and considered him a friend. Her gradual recognition that her charming colleague was a serial killer gives this book an authenticity impossible to replicate.

Rule writes as someone who liked Bundy, who trusted him, who is still processing the cognitive dissonance. This makes the book invaluable for understanding how charm and manipulation function. Bundy fooled someone trained in psychology who was literally researching serial killers.

Updated editions include Bundy's final confessions, making this the most comprehensive single volume on his crimes. Rule's professionalism as a former police officer shows in her meticulous case documentation.

Making a Murderer is compelling television that raised important questions about the criminal justice system, evidence handling, and the reliability of confessions. The filmmakers' access over a decade produced an intimate portrait of the Avery family and the legal process.

However, the series has been criticized for omitting evidence that supported Avery's guilt, creating a narrative more sympathetic to the defense than a balanced presentation would support. Viewers should research the full case, including evidence not shown.

The series also struggles with Teresa Halbach's representation—she becomes almost incidental to a story about her alleged killer. This is a recurring true crime problem: victim as catalyst rather than person.

Despite these issues, the documentary raised legitimate concerns about Brendan Dassey's interrogation and confession, leading to ongoing legal challenges.

Helter Skelter established the template for prosecutor-authored true crime: methodical case construction, insider access to investigation and trial, and authoritative tone. Bugliosi's narrative of building the case against Manson remains compelling decades later.

The book excels at explaining the complexity of prosecuting a conspiracy case where the leader didn't personally commit the murders. Bugliosi's legal strategy—using the "Helter Skelter" race war motive—is presented in detail.

Critics note Bugliosi presents his theories as more certain than evidence supported, and subsequent research has complicated the Helter Skelter narrative. Some evidence suggests the murders may have had different motivations than Bugliosi argued.

Despite these caveats, the book remains essential for understanding the Manson case and the intersection of the counterculture era with violent crime.

Evil Genius unfolds like fiction: a bank robbery, a bomb collar, a dead deliveryman, and a conspiracy involving con artists, murder, and frozen body parts. The documentary wisely lets the story's inherent strangeness carry the narrative.

The series examines whether Brian Wells was a victim or participant, eventually revealing a conspiracy more elaborate than initial appearances suggested. Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong emerges as a terrifying figure whose manipulation shaped multiple lives and deaths.

The documentary handles Wells's death footage respectfully while not shying from the horror of his final moments. It raises uncomfortable questions about his possible complicity without definitively resolving them.

The pacing occasionally drags, but the patience allows for complexity. This isn't a simple story, and the documentary honors that complexity.

Larson's genius is recognizing that Holmes's story and the World's Fair are the same story—both about the possibilities and dangers of the Gilded Age, about ambition and exploitation, about facades concealing rot.

The World's Fair sections are as compelling as the murder chapters. Larson makes you understand why Holmes chose this moment and place: a city bursting with newcomers, a fair drawing young women seeking opportunity, a boom time when verification failed and reinvention was easy.

The book is meticulously researched—Larson works only from primary sources—and beautifully written. It reads like a novel while maintaining historical rigor. The parallel structure builds to an inevitably tragic convergence.

Some historians note that Holmes's actual victim count is much debated and likely lower than legend suggests. Larson acknowledges uncertainties while telling the story.