What's your serial killer required reading list?
the true crime that's worth your time
When I was writing up my thoughts on Boston Strangler yesterday, I was surprised to discover that its source material wasn’t a book. That revelation is neither here nor there, but it did start me on a path of considering what books about serial killers should be on the reading list for anyone interested in true crime — and, also, what books deserve to be chucked off the shelf.
Sarah will probably rouse herself from her birthday week just long enough to croak “chuck Joe McGinniss” before she returns to bed with her pets and a book, for my part, I feel Helter-Skelter has aged poorly (and is Manson really a serial killer, anyway? That book is on a lot of those types of lists, but I don’t know if it counts).
The classics are just as controversial, in many cases. For everyone who loves Robert Graysmith’s Zodiac there’s a crusty old San Franciscan who says he got it all wrong; I adore Devil in the White City but I know a lot of you think it stunk.
That’s all fine, reasonable people can disagree! And I do think that if we are assembling the serial killer bookshelf to end all bookshelves, we should do so thoughtfully and not just because everyone says it’s a classic (I’m thinking of Helter-Skelter again). So let’s figure this out: what’s the ideal serial killer reading list, and what shouldn’t be considered for inclusion? — EB