Reading the 20th Century discussion

This is a thread devoted to True Crime books and, as it refers to a favourite genre, rather than author, I have placed it here and hope nobody objects.

We are thinking of a buddy read after the summer and would love to discuss possible titles, as well as any books you would just like to chat about - or, indeed, any famous/infamous crimes.

As per the group, the suggested Buddy Read should be within the 20th Century, but we can go off topic to discuss other books/crimes.

It might be worth looking at https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... as well.

One I've not read but would like to is....


Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son: The Story of the Yorkshire Ripper by Gordon Burn

His first book which was a study of Peter Sutcliffe


Probably the best true crime book I have ever read was...

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi


Whilst I enjoy true crime I haven't read that many books. Others I've read and consider interesting include....

Killing for Company: The Case of Dennis Nilsen by Brian Masters

The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins by John George Pearson

They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper by Bruce Robinson

Haven't read a lot of true crime but I enjoyed a couple from the US

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

and this Victorian crime that took place not far from where I live
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: or the Murder at Road Hill House

Pamela wrote: "Haven't read a lot of true crime but I enjoyed a couple from the US

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
[book:The Devil in the White City: Murder..."

What did you think of the last one you mention. It is on my lists but I have not yet read it. Yucky that it happened near where you are.

Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son: The Story of the Yorkshire Ripper is brilliant, Nigeyb.

I agree that Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders was fabulous and so was The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy: The Shocking Inside Story and One of Your Own: The Life and Death of Myra Hindley. I also like historical true crime.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI has been on my radar for a while.

I'm not sure modern/contemporary true crime is for me but would be interested if we do something historical: I'm pretty sure Mr Whicher is on my Kindle from when it was on sale.

I read Mr Whicher a while ago and, to be honest, am not sure it lived up to the hype, RC. However, yes, I think a more historical book might be a good choice.

I found Mr Whicher started well, and there was a good update at the end about what happened to the family members, but in the middle it rambled a bit.

I liked it because I knew the setting really well - even though the murder took place so long ago, the rural areas haven't changed that much - but other than that it was OK rather than great for me.

Thanks, Susan and Pamela. The book can wait.

Yes thanks for that. I'm not sure if this fits as 'true crime' but I've long wanted to read All the President's Men as I disgracefully only have the merest outline knowledge of Watergate.

It's a magnificent read RC - or so I recall from reading it as a teenager shortly after it was published.


I think labelling it true crime is a bit of stretch - despite all the criminal acts perpetrated. The genre tends to be about gangsters, murder, violence and serial killers to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. Or so I have observed.

Nigeyb wrote: "The genre tends to be about gangsters, murder, violence and serial killers to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. Or so I have observed. "

Tends toward, but not exclusively. True crime is about crime. It's just that we hear more about murderers and violence and, as sensationalism sells more copy, it gets more play.

You could well be right Elizabeth. I have only noticed the type of books I mention when looking at the titles in bookshops and online.

I would be interested in books more like:

Hitler's Art Thief: Hildebrand Gurlitt, the Nazis, and the Looting of Europe's Treasures

The world was stunned when eighty-year old Cornelius Gurlitt became an international media superstar in November 2013 on the discovery of over 1,400 artworks in his 1,076 square-foot Munich apartment, valued at around $1.35 billion. Gurlitt became known as a man who never was - he didn't have a bank account, never paid tax, never received social security. He simply did not exist. He had been hard-wired into a life of shadows and secrecy by his own father long before he had inherited his art collection built on the spoliation of museums and Jews during Hitler's Third Reich. The ensuing media frenzy unleashed international calls for restitution, unsettled international relations, and rocked the art world.

Ronald reveals in this stranger-than-fiction-tale how Hildebrand Gurlitt succeeded in looting in the name of the Third Reich, duping the Monuments Men and the Nazis alike. As an "official dealer" for Hitler and Goebbels, Hildebrand Gurlitt became one of the Third Reich's most prolific art looters. Yet he stole from Hitler too, allegedly to save modern art. This is the untold story of Hildebrand Gurlitt, who stole more than art-he stole lives, too.

The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century

On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London’s Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin’s obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins–some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin’s, Alfred Russel Wallace, who’d risked everything to gather them–and escaped into the darkness.

Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man’s relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man’s destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.

Roman Clodia wrote: "Yes thanks for that. I'm not sure if this fits as 'true crime' but I've long wanted to read All the President's Men as I disgracefully only have the merest outline knowledge of Watergate."

I suggested that a while ago, RC, when we were talking about Muriel Spark, as I wanted to read it alongside The Abbess of Crewe

Flowers of the Killer Moon was perhaps the best book I read last year.

Helter Skelter was good. As was All the President's Men.

I'm still reading or haven't started Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34, The "Double Indemnity" Murder: Ruth Snyder, Judd Gray, and New York's Crime of the Century, The Bone Lady: Life as a Forensic Anthropologist, And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank, A Death in White Bear Lake: The True Chronicle of an All-American Town among others.

One author who seems to churn them out is Harold Schechter. I was pleasantly surprised when I read Killer Colt: Murder, Disgrace, and the Making of an American Legend to find out he was actually a decent writer.

Sounds like I need to read Killer Moon, Jan.

Sean O'Connor is a historical true crime author I like a lot. Handsome Brute: The Story of a Ladykiller was excellent and I have his latest from NetGalley:
The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury

A quirky book that I really liked is An Unexplained Death: The True Story of a Body at the Belvedere

Also, Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

Blood on the Page: A Murder, a Secret Trial, a Search for the Truth

I am also keen to read Manuel: Portrait of a Serial Killer after loving Denise Mina's The Long Drop

Another that has been on my radar is

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?

Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.

And the blurb continues on the linked GR page.

Has anyone mentioned The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore

I have both of these books - currently unread.

The Library Book is currently £2.89, Jan, so have snapped it up and I also have Radium Girls. Unread as well :)

I absolutely loved Radium Girls - definitely a 5-star read for me.

David Grann (author of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI) has also written a collection of short true crime pieces which look interesting The Old Man and the Gun: And Other Tales of True Crime.

Killers of the Flower Moon has been mentioned a lot in this thread. Could this be a contender as a buddy read? How many people would wish to read this one?

I'm tentatively attracted Susan - the reviews look good and it's easy to procure and not too expensive.

I read this recently so wouldn't reread but I feel it would work well as a Buddy Read.

I'd be very enthused by a buddy read for....


Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son: The Story of the Yorkshire Ripper (1984) by Gordon Burn

There's a new edition being published on 4 July 2019 which includes a new introduction by RTTC fave Denise Mina

It seemed the case of the notorious Yorkshire Ripper was finally closed when Peter Sutcliffe was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1981. But in the early 1980s, Gordon Burn spent three years living in Sutcliffe's home town of Bingley, researching his life. Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son offers one of the most penetrating and provocative insights into the mind of a murderer ever written.

Nigeyb wrote: "One I've not read but would like to is....


Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son: The Story of the Yorkshire Ripper by Gordon Burn

His first book which was a study of P..."

Vincent Bugliosi also wrote one "Outrage", one of the best books written about the O.J. Simpson case.

I don't know what it is about O.J. Simpson, but I can't bear the thought of reading about him...

I have read the Gordon Burn, but would be up for a re-read. It would be nice to have a US and a UK based true crime read. We could have Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son: The Story of the Yorkshire Ripper as the UK read and

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI as a US based book?

I will not be reading about real murderers and serial killers, especially not one with a genocidal nature. It was Susan's reading of Norco '80: The True Story of the Most Spectacular Bank Robbery in American History that had me thinking I might try some of this genre.

I do hope you enjoy whatever it is you choose.

That works for me Susan - if there's interest from other group members

Well, let's see. Gordon Burn was a fabulous true crime writer. I have been impressed by all the titles I have read so far.

Norco '80 is extremely violent and, as so many crimes are, very poorly thought out.

Susan wrote: "Norco '80 is extremely violent and, as so many crimes are, very poorly thought out. "

I have read in depth and in some detail about The Great War. There cannot ever have been in the history of mankind, more violence perpetrated by human beings against other human beings, a war which required men to perform despicable acts that destroyed their very dignity when not their lives, so that the rest of us could lead lives of freedom.

And so I fully recognize that my not wanting to read about murderers and serial killers is a contradiction. I understand that there may be killings in the course of other crimes. I'm hard put to say why I won't read the former, but will accept the latter, because I'm not sure I understand it myself. But there it is.

I think I can understand part of what you mean Elizabeth. There are a few people who have no barriers against killing others, but they are rare. In a war, people were persuaded to act in a way which would break those barriers against their instincts.

Thanks, Val. I think I have come to this after some years. I have read Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, but it has been many many years ago. Another title up thread I've read more recently, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective. That seemed more like a detective story than a murder story, to be honest.

Susan wrote: "Killers of the Flower Moon has been mentioned a lot in this thread. Could this be a contender as a buddy read? How many people would wish to read this one?"

I read it fairly recently so I probably wouldn't re-read it. But I would take part in a discussion.

Anyone else for Nigeyb's suggestion? Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son: The Story of the Yorkshire Ripper?

Do I take it that lots of us have already read Killers of the Flower Moon and there is little interest in Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son? Perhaps neither are suitable buddy reads then and we should wait until a suggestion comes up that interest enough of the group to make it work.

Still, let's use this thread to talk about good true crime books we read, or come across and one might appeal eventually.

I am not too keen on serial killers, whether fictional or real-life, so I would not want to read those books.

Someone mentioned Mr Whicker. A book that I found very interesting by the same author was The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer. The crime ties in with current popular fears, and the story of the killer's life after his crime (spoiler: he isn't executed) I found entralling.

The Wicked Boy was set very near where I grew up, Rosina. I loved it too.

I started The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer but haven't finished. I liked the Mr. Whicher book. I found three shows on Amazon about Whicher. I'm just confused as to the order of the latter two.

I seem to recall there was much about the penny press, or shilling shockers, or whatever they were called. Anyway, as always, something modern, at the time, being blamed for the crime wave, in much the way computer games are highlighted for violence nowadays.

Penny dreadfuls Susan. A name I love.

Ah yes, that was it! Thanks, Nigeyb. You are right - what a great name :)

I am starting The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury

Adultery, alcoholism, drugs and murder on the suburban streets of Bournemouth.

The Rattenbury case of 1935 was one of the great tabloid sensations of the interwar period. The glamorous femme fatale at the heart of the story dominated the front pages for months, somewhere between the rise of Hitler and the launch of the Queen Mary.

With painstaking research and access to brand new evidence, Sean O’Connor vividly brings this epic story to life, from its beginnings in the South London slums of the 1880s and the open vistas of the British Columbian coast, to its bloody climax in a respectable English seaside resort.

The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury is a gripping murder story and a heartbreaking romance as well as the biography of a vital, modern woman trapped between the freedoms of two world wars and suffocated by the conformity of peacetime. A startlingly prescient parable for our times, it is the story of a woman who dared to challenge the status quo only to be crucified by public opinion, pilloried by the press and punished by the relentless machinery of the British legal system.

With a wealth of fascinating period detail, from its breathtaking opening to its shocking conclusion, The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury is a true story as enthralling, as provocative and as moving as any work of fiction.

I'll be interested to discover what you make of it


I enjoyed Handsome Brute: The Story of a Ladykiller by Sean O'Connor, as I know you did too.

Yes, I hope this is as good. It certainly looks interesting and Alma looks very beautiful on the cover.

I finally got hold of Handsome Brute but I don't think I've started it yet.