The popularity of the true crime genre has sparked numerous think pieces about how to distinguish diverting entertainment from harmful voyeurism. This season, several novelists, some of them former journalists, raise questions about what happens and who gets hurt when violence is sensationalized and crime becomes content. In these books, podcasters, reporters, and vigilante internet sleuths get their day in the sun, with sometimes deadly results.
Private investigators
Kate Brody’s Rabbit Hole (Soho Crime, Jan. 2024) is one of several forthcoming books in which an amateur detective sets out to solve a cold case or beat law enforcement to the answer. When Teddy Angstrom’s father dies by suicide, she discovers that he’s been conducting what the author calls a “deranged homespun investigation” into her sister’s decade-old disappearance, and finds herself lost in the same Reddit conspiracy forums that consumed him.
“There are passionate true crime communities on Reddit, working together collaboratively to try to solve old crimes, sometimes infringing on the privacy of living people who’ve been affected by tragedies,” Brody says. “I thought about what it would mean to be the subject of that kind of discussion, the feeling of exposure in finding these posts years later.”
Amazon Publishing associate publisher Gracie Doyle understands the appeal of amateur sleuthing. “I can’t be the only kid who wanted to be a detective,” she says. “And with all of us home for a couple of years, there’s a Rear Window element. We all love a good mystery.”
Among the books on her list is Elle Marr’s The Alone Time (Thomas & Mercer, Mar. 2024), which sees long-buried truths coming to light. Twenty-five years after Fiona and Violet Seng survived the private plane crash that killed their parents and left the girls, then ages 13 and seven, stranded in the Pacific Northwest wilderness for three weeks, a persistent documentarian calls into question their version of the events.
In Janice Hallet’s The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels (Atria, Jan. 2024), two true crime authors tussle over the career-making untold story of a cultlike group who believed that the child of one of its members was the Antichrist. “There’s a fine line between what’s public safety and what’s invading people’s privacy,” says Atria senior editor Kaitlin Olson. “Amateur detectives can go too far. We’ve seen this play out in real investigations—while intentions are really good, people on social media can get in the way.”
The intentions aren’t even necessarily good in Dervla McTiernan’s What Happened to Nina?, in which a character posts videos with conflicting theories of what happened to a missing girl in order to sow confusion. (See PW’s q&a with Dervla McTiernan, “Trial by Internet.”) In Kellye Garrett’s next thriller, the entire internet is on the lookout for a woman who fits the ideal victim profile: a Missing White Woman (Mulholland, Apr. 2024; Garrett discusses the phenomenon in “Social Distortion.”)
Husband and wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who’ve written numerous thrillers as Nicci French, probe the ramifications of reopening old wounds in their latest, Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? (Morrow, Mar. 2024). The wife and devoted mother of the title disappears just before her husband’s 50th birthday party; when a neighbor’s body is found soon after, the police conclude that the two were having an affair and died in a murder-suicide. Thirty years later, the neighbor’s son produces a popular podcast about the tragedy, throwing both families into turmoil.
“We need stories, they explain life to us,” Gerrard says; she and French are former journalists. “But sometimes there isn’t a shape to the mess of life. We read stories of serial killers, and when there’s no evident psychological motivation, it’s like trying to find a fingerhold in smooth rock.”
Anything for the story
Journalists are held to a standard the average TikTok creator isn’t, but they, too, can lose sight of the impact their work has on their subjects. Christina Estes draws on more than 20 years of reporting experience for her debut novel, Off the Air (Minotaur, Mar. 2024), in which journalist Jolene Garcia hopes that her investigation of a death at a local radio station will make her career. “She comes up against a line she isn’t sure she should cross,” says Minotaur associate editor Madeline Houpt. “She thinks, ‘Am I going too far?’ But she wants to solve the case.”
Jenny Hollander, director of content strategy at Marie Claire, turns the tables on a fellow journalist in her debut, Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead (Minotaur, Feb. 2024). Charlie Colbert, a successful magazine editor, witnessed a horrific event at her journalism school nine years earlier. When she learns that one of her former classmates is making a movie about the event, known as the Scarlet Christmas, Charlie worries that the truth will come out. “She doesn’t totally remember what happened,” says St. Martin’s editor Sallie Lotz, who edited the book. “But she knows she lied about it.”
Almost Surely Dead by Amina Akhtar (Mindy’s Book Studio, Feb. 2024) tells the story of Dunia, a woman who is attacked on the subway, unravels, and then goes missing. Two obsessed journalists launch a true crime podcast seeking fame from Dunia’s misfortune: they want a Netflix deal, they’re selling merch. “I wanted to dive into trauma as content,” Akhtar says. “There should be a code of ethics for true crime. Something horrible happened to somebody; if the family is willing to talk to you, you’re probably walking the right line. If someone doesn’t want their story told, whose decision is it to tell it? Who owns the story?”
Jason Pinter explores the tension between truth-telling and entertainment-selling in Past Crimes (Severn House, Feb. 2024), set in a near-future where true crime fans can immerse themselves in hyper-realistic simulations of gruesome historical killings; people can pay to search for clues inside Jeffrey Dahmer’s Wisconsin cabin, for instance, or attend Lincoln’s assassination. “In these virtual experiences, the evilness has been taken out,” Pinter says. “All we’re left with is the entertainment.”
In Jeffrey B. Burton’s The Dead Years (Severn House, Mar. 2024), a long-dormant serial killer sees a Netflix docudrama based on his crimes, and isn’t happy about his portrayal. “Morbid curiosity is a universal trait,” Burton says. “Every day in some paper somewhere around the world, there’s a story that proves truth is stranger than fiction—‘Holy shit, what did the guy do?’ ”
Exposure therapy
Engaging with crime stories, whether fictional or factual, can be cathartic, according to authors and editors interviewed for this piece. In Emily Austin’s Interesting Facts About Space (Atria, Jan. 2024), perennially anxious Enid finds solace in her true crime obsession. “It’s a controlled form of fear,” says Atria assistant editor Jade Hui, who edited the book. “It lets her alleviate her anxiety.”
Duane Swierczynski wrote the first few chapters of California Bear (Mulholland, Jan. 2024) while in the midst of a personal tragedy: the last months of his daughter’s life as she fought leukemia. One of the book’s characters is a 15-year-old girl with a leukemia diagnosis and an amateur sleuthing habit. Another is a serial killer who’s been hiding for decades; a pending documentary has him thinking about his legacy. “Killers are sometimes seen as kind of folk heroes,” Swierczynski says. “He wants that glory and fame.”
When Swierczynski worked as a journalist, he often “had to ask questions about someone’s worst day as entertainment,” he says. “But if you see victims as human, and do it respectfully, it’s a compelling story.” This extends to armchair detectives, he notes: they can be intrusive, but they’ve also solved some cold cases.
“We can’t help but be fascinated by true crime,” says Lisa Unger, whose next thriller, Christmas Presents (Mysterious, Oct.), centers on a bookstore owner with a dark past who ends up in the sights of an eager, unscrupulous podcast producer looking for his next hit. “In the creation of a narrative around dark stories, we can exert some kind of control. This wouldn’t happen to us, we’re too smart, we’ve been listening to true crime podcasts, we know it’s always the husband.”
Kill Show (Harper, Oct.), YA author Daniel Sweren-Becker’s adult debut, is an oral history–style novel documenting a small town’s reaction to the disappearance of a teenage girl and the cascading effects when Hollywood comes calling. In a starred review, PW said of the book: “The latest in a long line of contemporary thrillers interrogating the public fascination with private tragedy, this scorching indictment stands out.”
Harper executive editor Sara Nelson, who acquired Kill Show, offered her thoughts on why people love stories of true crime. “A therapist would say it’s a way to control your own fears: you can focus on these people you’ll never know, you don’t have to face your own fears about what would happen if there were a murder in your own building,” she says. “Also, people are nosy. They like to feel lucky, or superior: there but for the grace of God. It wasn’t me.”
Liz Scheier is a writer, editor, and product strategist living in Washington, D.C. She is the author of the memoir Never Simple.
Read more from our Mystery, Thriller & True Crime feature:
Social Distortion: PW Talks with Kellye Garrett
In 'Missing White Woman' (Mulholland, Apr. 2024), Kellye Garrett considers whose stories matter online.
Trial by Internet: PW Talks with Dervla McTiernan
McTiernan's latest thriller, 'What Happened to Nina?' (Morrow, Mar. 2024), shows how a true crime podcast can reopen old wounds.
New True Crime Books
Three podcasters turned authors discuss the ethics of their work.
