Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! Halloween is right around the corner, and that means it’s time for the annual Halloween freebie! These ones get harder to come up with an idea for every time, but since we’re going for scary stuff, let’s talk about books about murder/murderers…both real and imaginary.
Fiction
In The Woods: There are two murders in this one! One, of a young woman, that is being investigated by two detectives, and one that took place many many years ago, in one of the detectives’ past. The two intersect in interesting, inexplicable ways.
We Need To Talk About Kevin: This book examines a teenage boy who murders his school classmates, daring its readers to make a judgment call on nature v nuture.
American Psycho: These murders, committed by a Wall Street banker sociopath, are especially gruesome.
To Die For: The movie they made out of this one was honestly great, but the source material about an ambitious newscaster who needs her traditional husband out of the way is very much worth reading!
The Name of the Rose: A murder mystery among medieval monks! There are some obvious nods to Sherlock Holmes and it’s much more entertaining than you might think.
Nonfiction
Say Nothing: One kidnapping (and, eventually confirmed, murder) of a mother in Northern Ireland provides a lens through which to examine The Troubles.
Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: We will never know what actually happened and who actually killed JonBenet Ramsey, which is very frustrating.
Party Monster: Addicts killing each other over drugs is nothing new, but the over-the-top setting of Club Kid NYC provides an interesting twist!
The Stranger Beside Me: The classic, in which Ann Rule gradually comes to realize that the serial killer stalking young women in Washington state might actually be her suicide crisis hotline coworker Ted Bundy.
Devil in the White City: This book examines both H.H. Holmes and the Chicago World’s Fair he used the chaos of to help disguise his crimes.