Historical

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Prairie Fires comes a terrifying true-crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond—a gripping investigation of how a new strain of psychopath emerged out of a toxic landscape of deadly industrial violence.

A shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till that lays bare how forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was erased for so long.

For their wedding portrait, petite Pat Taylor and handsome Tom Allanson posed as Rhett and Scarlett. Less than two months later, their dream exploded in terror and murder: their beautiful home mysteriously burned to the ground and Tom was convicted of the brutal slaying of his parents....

In 1985, a white man walked into a South Georgia church and brutally murdered Harold and Thelma Swain, two pillars of the area's Black community. For fifteen years, the case remained unsolved. Then authorities zeroed in on Dennis Perry, a carpenter who grew up nearby.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Ghosts of Eden Park comes the incredible true story of murder in a utopian community established on a remote Galápagos island by European refugees and the American industrialist who became embroiled in the investigation.

Featuring thirty-five puzzling stories, Mysteries of the National Parks takes listeners to every corner of our diverse and beautiful country.

Science is a force for good in the world—at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing—no matter the cost....

When Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin boldly escaped from Alcatraz prison on June 11, 1962, it is widely believed that they succumbed to the waters of San Francisco Bay, though no trace of the men has ever been found, only their makeshift raft.

The revelatory true story of the long-forgotten POW camps for German soldiers erected in hundreds of small U.S. towns during World War II, and the secret Nazi killings that ensnared fifteen brave American POWs in a high-stakes showdown.

Louis Ferrante continues to debunk myths while adding new insights into other mafia mysteries.

The #1 New York Times and Amazon Charts bestselling author Gregg Olsen solves a murder among the Amish and reveals the conspiracy to keep it a secret in a heartbreaking and horrifying true-crime story.

Douglas Preston, the #1 bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God, presents this collection of the most jaw-dropping true stories from his career as a journalist and explorer....

The definitive story of Charles Starkweather, often considered to be the first mass killer in the modern age of America....

Using new technology, recently discovered documents and sophisticated investigative techniques, an international team—led by an obsessed retired FBI agent—has finally solved the mystery that has haunted generations since World War II....

Author Gary Krist recounts the sensational, forgotten true story of a woman who murdered her married lover in Gilded Age San Francisco, and the trial that epitomized the city's transformation from raucous frontier town into modern metropolis.

Dallas, Texas. November 22, 1963. Shots ring out at Dealey Plaza. The president is struck in the head by a rifle bullet. Confusion reigns. Special Agent Paul Landis is in the follow-up car directly behind JFK’s and is at the president’s limo as soon as it stops at Parkland Memorial Hospital....

Pittsburgh's small but lucrative Cosa Nostra mafia family was on the rise in 1985 with a newly crowned Don....

In this epic examination of one of the most infamous murders of the twentieth century, bestselling author of The Five, Hallie Rubenhold, gives voice to those who were never properly heard—the women.

In this first volume, Ferrante traces the mafia's phenomenal "rise of empire" through larger-than-life characters and legendary mobsters as they provide alcohol to the American public during Prohibition.

A compelling blend of true crime and memoir tracing the author’s investigation into the kidnapping and murder of her great-grandfather in 1980s Louisiana and the reverberations on her family and community throughout the decades

This audio original from the acclaimed author of American Sherlock, and the host of multiple true-crime podcasts, including Wicked Words, tells the fascinating story of the supernatural, and the club that united some of the world's most illustrious thinkers....

Acclaimed journalist, podcaster, and true-crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson tells the true story of the scandalous murder investigation that became the inspiration for both Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and the first true-crime book published in America.

These stories are pieced together from original research using coroner’s inquests, court records, parish archives, letters, diaries and the cheap street pamphlets that proliferated to satisfy a voracious public.

New York Times bestselling author and Edgar Award-winner Daniel Stashower returns with American Demon, a historical true crime starring legendary lawman Eliot Ness....

The gripping true story of the “duel to end all duels” in medieval France that pits a knight against a squire accused of violating the knight’s beautiful young wife....

In 1985, a white man walked into a South Georgia church and brutally murdered Harold and Thelma Swain, two pillars of the area's Black community. For fifteen years, the case remained unsolved. Then authorities zeroed in on Dennis Perry, a carpenter who grew up nearby. Convicted with devastatingly flawed evidence, Perry received a double life sentence. When award-winning journalist and South Georgia native Joshua Sharpe retraces the case, he discovers a winding path of corruption, devastating missteps, and secrets.

On a thrilling whistle-stop tour of how the world's criminal underbelly has shaped state-making, capitalism, globalisation and all forms of so-called legitimate power, Homo Criminalis shows the emergence of modern society through the evolution of the underworld and its crimes. From Chinese banditry and eighteenth-century English tea smuggling to today's cocaine submarines and the high-tech crimes of tomorrow, this book shows us how the world's dark underbelly shapes us, no matter how we try to outpace it.

In the eighteenth century the first American medical school was established in Philadelphia. Following the model of European universities, anatomical lectures were conducted with cadavers. But where did the bodies come from? Dissection was viewed as a fate worse than death, and the only legal source of "stiffs" was executed criminals. But there were not enough. As the medical profession and its need for "anatomical material" grew, a new, macabre practice emerged: body snatching.

From the bestselling, prize-winning author Linden MacIntyre comes an engrossing, page-turning exploration of the little-known life of Sir Hugh Tudor. Appointed by his friend Winston Churchill to lead the police in Ireland during the Irish War of Independence, Tudor met civil strife and domestic terrorism with indiscriminate state-sanctioned murder—changing the course of Irish history.

The Canonical Five refers to the five women most commonly identified as the victims of Jack the Ripper: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. Each of these women shared a tragic fate, becoming emblematic of the violence and desperation that characterized the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. Their stories are not just about their horrific deaths but also about the lives they led prior to their violent encounters with an unidentified killer.