Follow HistoricalCrimeDetective.com on Facebook The Zodiac Killer, whose serial murders terrorized northern California in the late ’60s, was a man named Earl Van Best Jr., according to a new book by Gary L. Stewart, who happens to be his biological son. Stewart’s The Most Dangerous Animal of All, as we reported Monday, is for […]

The Mammoth Book of Murder: True Stories of Violent Death This book contains 200 gripping accounts of homicide, criminal investigation, forensic science, criminology, and courtroom drama by veteran true crime writer Jim Fisher. The collection features murder-for-hire, arson murder, historic and celebrated murders, junk science, strange cause and manner of death cases, women who kill, […]

Review: Murder in Battle Creek, The Mysterious Death of Daisy Zick, by Blaine Lee Pardo, One of the golden rules when it comes to writing a true crime book is to never write about a murder that hasn’t been solved. It’s a good rule to follow until it’s broken, and it produces a well written […]

  “The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, The Model, and the Murder that Shook The Nation” by Harold Schechter, PhD. Crime historian and author, Harold Schecter PhD, has recently released his tenth historical true crime book, “The Mad Sculptor,” about the 1937 Manhattan murder of a 20 year-old model, her mother and a third individual by […]

Badge of Dishonor, a new book by retired Shreveport detective captain Jere Joiner, recounts the murder and cover-up of a young advertising executive and former Shreveport Times reporter by a hit man hired by the city’s commissioner of public safety. The book describes in chilling detail events leading up to the 1976 shotgun slaying of 36-year-old Jim […]

. Skull in the Ashes: Murder, a Gold Rush Manhunt, and the Birth of Circumstantial Evidence in America, by Peter Kaufman On a February night in 1897, the general store in Walford, Iowa, burned down. The next morning, townspeople discovered a charred corpse in the ashes. Everyone knew that the store’s owner, Frank Novak, had […]

. Before I decided to major in journalism and creative writing two decades ago, I wanted to be an archeologist. Having been on some digs, there’s just something so incredible about digging up an artifact in which the last person who touched it was 300 to 1,000s of years ago. Well, I found a book […]

  Classic True Crime, Hollywood Style While viewers were captivated by the drama playing out on the silver screen, the lives of the stars of these film noir classics were often far more exciting. Uncover true stories of mystery and murder in a dozen different chapters featuring William Desmond Taylor, Thomas Ince, Jean Harlow, Thelma […]