Select language, opens an overlay
  • General Recommendations
  • Staff-Created List

Fiction for True Crime Fans

If you're a true crime reader looking to mix things up, we have some great novel recommendations for you. These novels feature true crime storylines that will hook readers.

Chicago Public Library

11 items

  • Rachel Hart, a former police officer, is interviewed on a true crime podcast about a murder that prompted her to leave the force. When the confessed killer recants his guilt, the case is blown wide open in this gripping mystery.
    PaperbackSeattle : Montlake, [2021] — FIC WHITE
  • A true crime blogger interviews a wealthy reclusive and former suspect of two local cold case murders in this paranaormal mystery featuring a good dose of gothic elements.
    BookNew York : Berkley, [2022] — FIC ST
  • As her life implodes and a secret past comes back to haunt her, Anna McDonald takes off with her friend's husband, Fin, to prove that an old friend, the subject of a true crime podcast, is innocent in this complex and satisfying thriller.
    BookNew York : Mulholland Books/Little, Brown and Company, 2019. — FICTION
  • In this hybrid of mystery and horror novel, true crime author Gage Chandler moves into a house where some infamous murders took place during the 1980’s Satanic Panic to work on a book about them in this twisy tale that also manages to…
    BookNew York : MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022. — FIC DARNIELL
  • A true-crime obsessed family come home to the family’s secluded mansion to bury their father and discover their brother, Andy, who went missing ten years earlier was actually murdered and are determined to discover who did it in is this…
    PaperbackNew York, NY : Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2021. — FIC COLLINS
  • When her favorite true crime podcaster Rachel disappears, Sera Fleece sets out to investigate. But things turn ominious when she finds herself at Rachel's family ranch and discovers this isn't the first disappearance.
    BookNew York : Berkley, [2021] — FICTION
  • Film professor and podcaster Bodie Kane is invited to teach a course at her former boarding school, and as she heads back to New Hampshire she begins to revisit memories of a murder that transpired her senior year. When one of her students…
    Book[New York] : Viking, [2023] — FIC MAKKAI
  • Podcaster Cody Swift re-examines the deaths of two childhood friends who were murdered decades before. The suicide of the alleged killer and the discovery of a long-dead body where the boys were found raises questions about the original…
    PaperbackNew York, NY : William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers,|c[2018] — FICTION
  • Rachel Krall, a podcast host, finds a note regarding a local cold case on her car at a diner where she is covering the trial of an Olympic swimmer accused of rape. The notes keep coming and Rachel makes a connection between the cases in…
    BookNew York : St. Martin's Press, 2020. — FICTION
  • While interning with a medical examiner, a college student discovers new information about the unsolved murder of a sorority girl on campus and launches a podcast about it in this gripping series opener featuring former US Marshal Regan…
    PaperbackToronto, Ontario, Canada : Mira, [2021] — FIC BRENNAN
  • Exhuasted housewife Patricia finds camaraderie and excitement in a true crime club. The women's interest is piqued when handsome James Harris moves down the street, but then weird things begin to happen in this humorous and gruesome horror…
    BookPhiladelphia : Quirk Books, [2020] — FICTION