Modern True Crime

When acclaimed mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers first began compiling anthologies of the best crime stories in the 1920s and ’30s, the genre was in the flush of its first golden age. While it is hard to imagine today - after every possible mystery plot has been told, retold, subverted, and played straight again by hundreds of writers over nearly a century - in Sayers’s day there were still twists that had never been seen, and machinations of crime that would shock even jaded Jazz Age fans.

Murder, terrorism, and mass killings were prominent in the news for 2018, and in this true crime anthology, you will find the cases that made international headlines from January to the end of December.

It is no secret that true crime murder stories are not for the faint of heart. They can lead you to double-check your windows and doors at night, and question everything you thought or believed about human nature. Yet they are intriguing and fascinating at the same time. What is it that makes us different from those who take the lives of others? That is a question that many ask themselves, and these true crime stories help to identify the method and psychology behind some of the most terrifying killers in modern history.

Revisiting Dr. Michael Stone's groundbreaking 22-level Gradations of Evil Scale, a hierarchy of evil behavior first introduced in the book The Anatomy of Evil, Stone and Dr. Gary Brucato, a fellow violence and serious psychopathology expert, here provide even more detail, using dozens of cases to exemplify the categories along the continuum. The New Evil also presents compelling evidence that, since a cultural tipping-point in the 1960s, certain types of violent crime have emerged that in earlier decades never or very rarely occurred.

True crime is about humanity. We are hardwired to pay attention to things that could harm us, and that’s why so many of us are captivated by the genre. It’s not a reflection of something dark within us - it’s a reflection of human nature. True crime has become more than a source of entertainment, and it plays a critical role in giving forgotten victims a voice they never had the chance to share. Indeed, reading and sharing true crime stories is an act of social responsibility.

Forcible Confinement is a study of the warped thinking that went into some of the world's most macabre crimes, as well as a clinical examination of the purpose-built rooms, hidden spaces, and soundproofed dungeons prepared for victims.