Crime Memoir

For the first time, the full story of a crime that has haunted New England since 1873. The cold-blooded ax murder of two innocent Norwegian women at their island home off the coast of New Hampshire has gripped the region since 1873, beguiling tourists, inspiring artists, and fueling conspiracy theorists. The killer, a handsome Prussian fisherman down on his luck, was quickly captured, convicted in a widely publicized trial, and hanged in an unforgettable gallows spectacle.

Once upon a time Rolling Stone contributing editor Erik Hedegaard became the last mainstream media journalist to interview Charles Manson. But the story he wrote for RS in 2013 didn’t begin to capture the strange and lingering effect Manson would have on his life. Now, in this Audible Original, you’ll hear about the making of that story, including audio of the phone calls Hedegaard received from Manson on a regular basis, interviews he conducted with Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, as well as conversations he had with Manson Family members.

The definitive account of the O. J. Simpson trial, The Run of His Life is a prodigious feat of reporting that could have been written only by the foremost legal journalist of our time. First published less than a year after the infamous verdict, Jeffrey Toobin's nonfiction masterpiece tells the whole story, from the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman to the ruthless gamesmanship behind the scenes of "the trial of the century".

The Kennedys have always been a family of charismatic adventurers, raised to take risks and excel, living by the dual family mottos: "To whom much is given, much is expected" and "Win at all costs". And they do - but at a price. Across decades and generations, the Kennedys have occupied a unique place in the American imagination: charmed, cursed, at once familiar and unknowable. The House of Kennedy is a revealing, fascinating account of America's most storied family, as told by America's most trusted storyteller.

At the height of the Cold War, JFK risked committing the greatest crime in human history: starting a nuclear war. Horrified by the specter of nuclear annihilation, Kennedy gradually turned away from his long-held Cold Warrior beliefs and toward a policy of lasting peace. But to the military and intelligence agencies in the United States, who were committed to winning the Cold War at any cost, Kennedy's change of heart was a direct threat to their power and influence.

This book starts where the first book, The Unknown Mongol, ended. The year is 1998, and Scott "Junior" Ereckson, the national president of the Mongols Motorcycle Club, has been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. Because he's an ex-felon and it’s his second strike, he's been sentenced to 14 years in state prison.

It was the trial that stunned America, the verdict that shocked us all. On July 5, 2011, nearly three years after her initial arrest, Casey Anthony walked away, virtually scot-free, from one of the most sensational murder trials of all time. She'd been accused of killing her daughter, Caylee, but the trial only left behind more questions: Was she actually innocent? What really happened to Caylee? Was this what justice really looked like?

To a unique degree, Christopher Steele has been an eyewitness observer of modern Russian history. He was a British diplomat and intelligence professional in Moscow when the Soviet Union was collapsing. Steele was there when the putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev took place and when Boris Yeltsin took over the newly independent Russia. After Vladimir Putin came to power, Steele rose to become one of British government’s leading Russia experts and played a central role in the investigation into the Kremlin-ordered murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

One moonlit night, 14-year-old Reena Virk went to join friends at a party and never returned home. In this “tour de force of crime reportage” (Kirkus Reviews), acclaimed author Rebecca Godfrey takes us into the hidden world of the seven teenage girls - and boy - accused of a savage murder. As she follows the investigation and trials, Godfrey reveals the startling truth about the unlikely killers. Laced with lyricism and insight, Under the Bridge is an unforgettable look at a haunting modern tragedy.

In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men: Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication. Their lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.

The acclaimed author of American Dirt reveals the devastating effects of a shocking tragedy in this landmark true-crime work - the first ever to look intimately at the experiences of both the victims and their families. A Rip in Heaven is Jeanine Cummins’ story of a night in April, 1991, when her two cousins Julie and Robin Kerry, and her brother, Tom, were assaulted on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River just outside of St. Louis.

Once Donald Trump’s fiercest surrogate, closest confidant, and staunchest defender, Michael Cohen knows where the skeletons are buried. This is the most devastating business and political horror story of the century. As Trump’s lawyer and “fixer”, Cohen not only witnessed firsthand but was also an active participant in the inner workings of Trump’s business empire, political campaign, and presidential administration.

On April 26th, 1988, a man was shot and killed in a remote cabin in rural Ontario. Four witnesses were questioned by the police. Each one told a different story. Worse, they continued to change their stories, repeatedly contradicting not only each other, but also themselves. Ultimately, a woman named Mae McEachern was charged with murder. But what really happened that night?

On August 13, 2018, Christopher Watts murdered his pregnant wife and two toddler daughters. Cheryln Cadle contacted him and started visiting him in prison. Christopher started writing her letters from his prison cell in Wisconsin. These letters had his confessions of things he had never told anyone else.

Josef Fritzl was a 73-year-old retired engineer in Austria. He seemed to be living a normal life with his wife, Rosemarie, and their family - though one daughter, Elisabeth, had decades earlier been "lost" to a religious cult. Throughout the years, three of Elisabeth's children mysteriously appeared on the Fritzls' doorstep; Josef and Rosemarie raised them as their own. But only Josef knew the truth about Elisabeth's disappearance.... For 27 years, Josef had imprisoned and molested Elisabeth in his man-made basement dungeon.

In Thatcher's Spy, the Cold War meets Northern Ireland's Dirty War in the remarkable real-life story of a deep under-cover British intelligence agent, a man now doomed forever to look over his shoulder. In March 1985, as he climbed the six steps of Margaret Thatcher's prime-ministerial jet on the runway of RAF Aldergrove, little did Willie Carlin know the role Freddie Scappaticci played in saving his life.

The Parable of the Knocker is a nonfiction book about the investigation, prosecution, and trial of a notorious serial killer, Charles Severance. Severance committed his crimes in the City of Alexandria, Virginia, an affluent, historic community just miles south of Washington, DC. Over the course of a decade, Severance ambushed three outstanding Alexandria residents in their middle-class neighborhood by knocking on their front doors in broad daylight and shooting them unexpectedly when they answered the knock.

When a fancy car pulls up outside six-year-old Marie's home in 1959, her dad tells her she is going on holiday. But little does she know she will not see her home again for four long years. Her family cannot afford to keep her at home. Marie tells the story of how she was taken away from a poor but happy and loving home life to live in a convent - away from everyone and everything she holds dear. Her hair is bluntly chopped, her clothes are taken away and her name is changed. Then a horrific ritual of physical, sexual and mental abuse begins.

A true-crime story that sounds like a thriller, Sleeping with a Psychopath is a blow-by-blow account of the power of manipulation and a testament to the human will to survive.

Timed for a trial that will capture national attention, When the Night Comes Falling examines the mysterious murders of the four University of Idaho students. Having covered this case from its start, Edgar award winning investigative reporter Howard Blum takes listeners behind the scenes of the police manhunt that eventually led to suspected killer, Bryan Christopher Kohberger, and uncovered larger, lurid questions within this unthinkable tragedy.