74 Books Like Mindhunter

It is a book that deep dives into a historical event, in this case, the 1893 World Columbian Exposition. Check. It is a nonfiction book that reads like a gripping thriller, in this case, the serial killer H.H. Holmes, who built a three-story building featuring secret rooms, torture chambers, and a crematorium. Check. Chicago leaps off the page. By the end of the book, I was able to envision the massive exposition, its hundreds of temporary buildings, all white colored, interlaced with ponds and canals.

Much like that exposition helped raise Chicago up from its Great Fire, so I could see a Chicago of the past, in a glorious triumph of industry and innovation. Oh, and yeah, a serial killer constructing a horrific murder building.

I was shaken to my core not only by Capote’s character study of two different yet partnered killers but also by his behind-the-scenes depiction of the death penalty process. For the first time, I began to see how capital punishment affects all those involved in its machinations.

This is an excellent reading about a former FBI agent not giving up on their search to find predators. I truly honor this agent for how he never gave up on the search. From my former experience as a Special Agent with The Drug Enforcement Administration, the writers did a thorough job to focus on how the FBI Agents unselfishly dedicated long investigative hours to target the predators of children. The writers described how the FBI agent’s moral beliefs and his dedication to helping the sexually abused children; perseverance, and creative innovative investigative techniques that enable him to find the predators.

This is a relatively new book, but not only does it take you through the case of serial killer Don Miller it explains how difficult it can be for the survivors to move on with their lives. In general, most people think that once the trial is over  that everyone can move on with their lives, but that’s not always the case. Killers like don Miller come up for parole, and that’s when the second part of the journey continues for these survivors. It becomes really hard to move forward with their lives when they have to relive the murders at every parole hearing until either the killer is released or dies.

As with physique photographs, I never associated murder with gay history, but newspapers were full of reports of it, often in coded and lewd language, as early as the 1920s. The cases were virtually identical. An older man meets a younger, attractive one and invites him home. In a fit of “homosexual panic” after the older man’s “indecent advance” toward him, the younger kills the older but, tried, is found innocent, given a light sentence, or paroled. Juries, judges, newspaper reporters, and the police engaged in and promoted such extreme homophobia. Indecent Advances helped me understand a principal excuse our society used in an attempt to cover up its hatred of gay men. 

Michelle McNamara waded into a new area of criminal investigation—hive investigation.

McNamara, a crime writer, got crime buffs together online, each using specific talents to search for the burglar-kidnapper-murderer who terrorized Californians for 12 years. With their help and DNA from an ancestry website, police were able to arrest ex-cop Joseph DeAngelo.

He pled guilty to 13 counts of murder and kidnapping in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table. Prosecutors called DeAngelo a poster boy for the death penalty.

Mc Namara's dogged detective work helped nab him and she is credited with the appellation Golden State Killer.

After you read the book, you need to see Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood.

In the summer of 1969, in Los Angeles, a series of brutal, seemingly random murders captured headlines across America. A thin trail of circumstances eventually tied the Tate-LeBianca murders to Charles Manson, a would-be pop singer of small talent living in the desert with his "family" of devoted young women and men. What was the motivation behind such savagery?

The murders marked the end of the sixties and became an immediate symbol of the dark underside of that era. Vincent Bugliosi was the prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial, and this book is his riveting account of how he built his case from what a defense attorney dismissed as only “two fingerprints and Vince Bugliosi.”

The meticulous detective work with which the story begins, the prosecutor’s view of a complex murder trial, the reconstruction of… show more.

I admit I’m old enough that memories of the post-Vietnam War era had begun to fade (mercifully?) until this book brought them back into sharp focus.

Vientiane, Laos, in 1976, after the Communist takeover, is so vividly portrayed–from the scent of the “Crow Shit blossoms” on the banks of the Mekhong to the inertia of the socialistic hierarchy, to the chicken counter spies turning their neighbors in for their capitalistic extravagances. And I found the 72-year-old Laotian coroner protagonist so endearing!

His cynical outlook and visitations from the dead make him a singularly sage and unconventional hero who can roll with the wildly absurd changes of the new regime. 

Hannibal Lecter’s silky smooth menace still chills me like no other villain on my shelf.

Silence of the Lambs taught me how to write a terrifying villain with more than enough charisma to start a devoted cult. Every reread of this book hooks me with that hypnotic voice. Hannibal’s character is so persuasive and razor-sharp, I catch myself sympathizing before the dread slams back in.

I love how Thomas Harris forces me to straddle the line between fascination and horror, then shoves me into Clarice Starling’s head for that heart-hammering showdown with Buffalo Bill.

Decades later, for me, no thriller matches its psychological intrigue. It’s a timeless classic that keeps my lights blazing and my imagination deliciously unsettled.

This is a beast of a thriller at 700 pages, but I thoroughly enjoyed the deep dive nevertheless. American ex-spy Pilgrim is pitched against a Saudi mujahideen fighter known as the Saracen, who is bent on avenging himself against the United States with a chillingly devastating plan.

Both protagonist and antagonist are well fleshed out with detailed backstories that make the character development top-notch in this murder mystery-turned-spy terrorism thriller. There's an interesting switch between first and third person, which I've rarely encountered.

I found it quite engrossing, and many scenes linger long after I put the book down. It's a solid thriller that I could really get my teeth into.