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Updated 8/2009

Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale
Frank W. Abagnale, alias Frank Williams, Robert Conrad, Frank Adams and Robert Monjo, was one of the most daring con men, forgers, imposters and escape artists in history. In his brief but notorious criminal career, Abagnale donned a pilot's uniform and co-piloted a jet, masqueraded as the supervising resident of a hospital, practiced law without a license, passed himself off as a college sociology professor, and cashed more than $2.5 million in forged checks, all before he was 21. Known by the police of 26 foreign countries and all 50 states as "The Skywayman," Abagnale lived a sumptuous life on the lam – until the law caught up with him. Now recognized as the nation's leading authority on financial foul play, Abagnale is a charming rogue whose hilarious, stranger-than-fiction international escapades and ingenious escapes make Catch Me If You Can an irresistible tale of deceit.

Bitter Blood  by Jerry Bledsoe
This book recreates a complex case that claimed nine lives, one of the more shocking crimes of recent years. The links in all the deaths were Susan Lynch and her cousin Fritz Klenner, each from a prominent, upper-middle-class Southern family. The murders began with the shootings of Lynch's ex-mother-in-law and ex-sister-in-law in Kentucky, and continued with the slayings of her parents and grandmother in North Carolina. What connected the killings was the bitter divorce between Susie and her husband Tom, and the impending custody battle for their children….

Midnight Assassin  by Patricia L Bryan and Thomas Wolf
Law professor Bryan and her husband, Wolf, a writing consultant, vividly bring to life the baffling events of the night of December 1, 1900, when a well-to-do farmer named John Hossack was fatally attacked with an ax while sleeping in his bed. Suspicions soon focused on his long-suffering wife, Margaret, who claimed to have been asleep by her husband's side when the assault took place. The tale is given heightened immediacy by the authors' description of how alive the case still is in the minds of local townspeople even a century later – Bryan and Wolf were even warned they might be in danger if they got too close to the truth.

Anyone You Want Me To Be by John Douglas
The Internet has made many enterprises easier since its rise to popularity in the mid-90s: book sales, personal correspondence and, in the case of John Robinson, serial murder. Even before he ever went online, Robinson had forged a life consistent with a killer's profile. Despite being fired and arrested numerous times for fraud and theft, he wriggled out of serious trouble thanks to a smooth charm and cunning intelligence. For decades, Robinson's more sinister activities escaped the notice of nearly everyone, including law enforcement and, incredibly, his own wife. But what makes Robinson's story, as told here by John Douglas and Stephen Singular, uniquely disturbing is the presence of the World Wide Web and the ease with which a murderer can use it.

Never Enough by Joe McGinniss
The saga of the highly competitive and superambitious Kissel brothers – who both end up murdered – is the dramatic center of McGinniss's account of the unsavory side of family life. Married in 1989, Robert and Nancy Kissel looked like the storybook couple: she was gorgeous, he was an upward-bound investment banker. But Rob's family was a pressure cooker, and Nancy had a cruel, unforgiving streak, and when Rob was transferred to Hong Kong, according to McGinniss, Nancy felt trapped and alone in the gilded cage of their luxury apartment complex. In 2002, she drugged Rob and bludgeoned him to death, then wrapped the corpse in a carpet and put it in storage.

I: the Creation of a Serial Killer  by Jack Olsen
During the 1990s, the Pacific Northwest was besieged by a serial killer, Keith Hunter Jesperson, who taunted the police for incarcerating the wrong people for one of his eight victims; he signed his letter to the police with a happy face and hence became known as the Happy Face Killer. Renowned true-crime author Olsen uses diaries, court records and interviews with the killer himself to present Jesperson's version of why he became a serial killer and how he killed his victims.

Chasing the Devil  by Sheriff David Reichert
For 20 years, Sheriff David Reichert of King County, Washington, was a man with a single, all-consuming obsession: to capture the most notorious serial killer in American history – the monster who would become known nationwide by the name of the river he used as a dumping ground. From the earliest morning hours to the middle of the night, Reichert combed local streets and alleys, wilderness and parkland, searching for any clue that could lead him to the Green River killer.

Hunting Eric Rudolph  by Henry Schuster with Charles Stone
Accused of detonating bombs at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, two abortion clinics and a gay nightclub, Eric Rudolph went on the run. He shot bears and ate salamanders for more than five years, but finally was captured in June 2003 and now sits in a Birmingham jail.The account of one of the longest manhunts in American history by two individuals who covered it from the beginning, CNN journalist Henry Schuster - who ultimately broke the story of Rudolph's capture - and former Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent Charles Stone, who continued trying to unlock Rudolph's secrets even after his own retirement.

In Plain Sight  by Tom Smart and Lee Benson
This riveting inside story of the intense search for the Salt Lake City teenager who was kidnapped from her bed reveals never-before-told details of the largest investigation in Utah state history. Paced like a thriller, this true account moves between the parallel stories of the searchers and the abductor. The firsthand account of Tom Smart, Elizabeth's uncle and one-time suspect, reveals the details of the flawed police investigation, the media's manipulation of the family, and the eyewitness account of nine-year-old Mary Katherine Smart that went largely ignored by investigators.

Scream at the Sky by Carlton Stowers
Rural Texas endures a long-unsolved serial killing spree, in this grim suspenser by Edgar Award winner Stowers. The narrative begins in late 1984, when a young nurse is found raped and murdered in Wichita Falls; soon a second, equally brutal murder stokes the city's fears. One indictment ends in mistrial when a third murder occurs; eventually, there are five victims. Faryion Wardrip, a local eccentric with drug and money troubles, and an acquaintance of the third victim, readily confesses to her murder. Paroled after serving 11 years of his 35-year sentence for that one murder, Wardrip, purportedly a changed man, becomes active in a local church and remarries; however, a hungry young district attorney's investigator named John Little begins working the long-unsolved murders in December 1999 and soon gleans a crucial clue from old reports that might tie Wardrip to the other murders.

A Death in Texas  by Dina Temple-Raston
On June 7, 1998, a 49-year-old black man named James Byrd Jr. was chained to the bumper of a truck and dragged three miles down a country road by a trio of young white men. It didn't take long for the residents of Jasper, Texas, to learn about the murder or to worry that the name of their town would become the nation's shorthand for hate crimes. From the initial investigation through the trials and their aftermath, A Death in Texas tells the story of the infamous Byrd murder as seen through the eyes of enlightened Sheriff Billy Rowles.