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Published on Chapter Break Book Blog / 12/2025 WOW Book Tour
My Favorite Crime Reads
I have read that people watch horror movies to make their own lives feel more manageable. For instance, your boss may belittle you, but the guy on the screen is getting chased by an ax-wielding maniac, making him much worse off than you. Likewise, your co-worker may have just under minded your promotion, but doubtful they served you up as sacrifice to a Satanist cult. If horror draws this kind of viewer, I am willing to believe that True Crime is not far off the mark. True crime has long been a genre that interests me. While I have watched far more documentaries and movies than read books on the topic, there are three reads that left a lasting impression on my psyche.
The first True Crime book I read was Helter Skelter. My dad had a copy sitting on his nightstand and, ever the snoop, I started reading it. At that time, the extent of violence on page for me was Roger murdering Piggy in Lord of the Flies. So, when Vincent Bugliosi delved into the gruesome, unheard-of details of the Tate and LaBianca murders, my immature and impressionable mind was mortified and repulsed, yet immediately hooked. Of course, I knew murder existed, but the specified brutal slayings of those living on the prestigious border of Beverly Hills, especially a beautiful, pregnant movie star, showed that vigilance is always necessary regardless of money or celebrity.
Having a new taste for gory details, my second book in True Crime followed another California atrocity that journeyed into South America. In Tim Reiterman’s Raven, Jim Jones’s, the charismatic cult leader, descends into madness. Unfortunately, his followers did not foresee this. In fact, once he established himself in California, his flock mightily grew. With that growth came legal scrutiny of fraud, abuse, etc., leading Jones and his most loyal followers to hightail it to the Jonestown compound in Guyana. A few years later, a congressman and investigative reporters arrived on scene prompting Jones to have them killed and initiate mass suicide. When devotees saw other members enduring the “Kool-Aid” death, they tried to escape but were shot or stabbed. This horrific account of the nine hundred people killed that fall of ’77 became my sophomore book report. I still wonder what my teacher thought of the topic, despite the ‘A.’
My third choice is a combination of True Crime and Paranormal. Before I watched the Amityville Horror, I read Jay Anson’s paperback about Ronald DeFeo’s murder of his family in Long Island, New York and the aftermath when the Lutz Family purchased DeFeo’s home. The bulk of the book pertains to the Lutz family’s twenty-eight-day experience which somewhat validated DeFeo’s story of a haunting. The paranormal elements in this book kept me electrified. At bedtime, I was terrified to bear the dark. Even more eerie was when I woke up just past 3AM a couple of nights. DeFeo killed his family at 3:15AM, and George Lutz started waking up at 3:15AM during their time at the home. The power of persuasion!
While I still watch serial killer movies, my reading on the topic greatly slowed. It is more unsettling for me to read about True Crime than to watch a canned version of it. While a few more reads trickled in—Women Who Kill and even Gavin DeBecker’s The Gift of Fear (recommended by my Quanjinim)—my Top Three made a lasting impression that fully satisfied my literary interest in the subject.
Murder Under Redwood Moon Blog Tour #SherriDodd
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