True Crime Bargain Book Box

True Crime Bargain Book Box

A forensic ecologist who can tell you where a body has been from the pollen in its hair. A prison officer with two books about Parkhurst. A man who ran with the Krays, writing it down himself.

This box leans toward people who were actually in the room. David Wilson, a former prison governor turned criminologist, on the men he worked with and on why home is statistically the most dangerous place most of us go. Charles Manson in his own words. Justin Fenton on the Baltimore police unit that turned out to be a criminal enterprise. Luis Rodriguez on East LA gang life from inside it.

Plus the cold cases and the long arguments: a new identification of Jack the Ripper, Britain’s most baffling unsolved murder, the Murdaugh family, Ivan Milat, and Kate Summerscale on a 1938 haunting that was really a criminal investigation.

Reported, researched, and in several cases lived.

1. The Killing Chronicle: Police Service and Shattered Lives — Alan Leek | ISBN: 9781922265487 | RRP: $34.99
   A former NSW police officer on homicide investigation and its long aftermath — for victims’ families and for the detectives carrying the cases. Written from the inside, with no interest in glamour.
2. Inside Parkhurst: Stories of a Prison Officer — David Berridge | ISBN: 9781841884226 | RRP: $26.99
   Life on the landings of one of Britain’s most violent prisons, told by the man who worked them. Berridge writes about the inmates, the routine, and the violence without posturing — which is what makes it land.
3. Inside Parkhurst — The Final Stretch — David Berridge | ISBN: 9781399609685 | RRP: $24.99
   More stories from behind the bars of Parkhurst, continuing an unusually honest account of prison work. Both volumes together make for a sustained look at a world few outsiders ever see.
4. Inside the Mind of the Backpacker Killer: Ivan Milat — Tanya Farber | ISBN: 9781802473377 | RRP: $22.99
   The Belanglo State Forest murders and the man who committed them. A clear-eyed account of one of Australia’s worst serial killers and the investigation that eventually caught him.
5. Talking With Psychopaths — A Journey Into the Evil Mind — Christopher Berry-Dee | ISBN: 9781789467956 | RRP: $24.99
   From the number one bestselling true crime author, drawing on decades of direct interviews with convicted killers. Berry-Dee has sat across the table from more of them than almost anyone writing.
6. Tangled Vines: Power, Privilege and the Murdaugh Family Murders — John Glatt | ISBN: 9781789467383 | RRP: $24.99
   The South Carolina legal dynasty, the murders, the financial fraud, and the century of local power that let it all run unchecked for so long. Thoroughly reported.
7. The Natural History of Crime: Case Studies in Death and the Clues Nature Leaves Behind — Patricia Wiltshire | ISBN: 9781789466485 | RRP: $49.99
   A forensic ecologist on reading pollen, soil, fungi, and plant matter to place a body or a suspect. Wiltshire has solved cases nobody else could — and explains exactly how.
8. One-Armed Jack: Uncovering the Real Jack the Ripper — Sarah Bax Horton | ISBN: 9781789296808 | RRP: $28.99
   A new identification built on fresh archival research rather than speculation. Sarah Bax Horton’s descendant of a Whitechapel police officer credentials show in the rigour — one of the more persuasive Ripper books in years.
9. Running With The Krays — Freddie Foreman | ISBN: 9781786062802 | RRP: $22.99
   The autobiography of the Krays’ enforcer, known as the Managing Director of British crime. Unrepentant, matter-of-fact, and a genuinely first-hand account of the London underworld.
10. The Corporation — T J English | ISBN: 9781760554279 | RRP: $19.99
    The rise of the Cuban-American criminal organisation that ran Miami’s underworld for decades. T J English reports organised crime with real depth and a superb ear for the people in it.
11. Manson in His Own Words — Nuel Emmons | ISBN: 9781611854787 | RRP: $24.99
    Manson’s own account, assembled over years of interviews by a man who knew him before the murders. Self-serving, manipulative, and precisely for those reasons a remarkable document.
12. The Wallace Case: Britain’s Most Baffling Unsolved Murder — Roger Wilkes | ISBN: 9781472145222 | RRP: $26.99
    The 1931 Liverpool murder of Julia Wallace — a case so strange that Raymond Chandler called it unbeatable. Roger Wilkes examines the evidence and arrives at a conclusion worth arguing with.
13. The Haunting of Alma Fielding — Kate Summerscale | ISBN: 9781408895443 | RRP: $29.99
    Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2020. A 1938 poltergeist investigation that becomes something much darker and more human. Summerscale is one of the finest non-fiction writers working.
14. Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered — Georgia Hardstark | ISBN: 9781398700338 | RRP: $24.99
    From the hosts of My Favorite Murder — part memoir, part advice, part explanation of why so many women find true crime compelling rather than frightening. Funny and genuinely thoughtful.
15. Murder at Home: How Our Safest Space Is Where We’re Most in Danger — David Wilson | ISBN: 9780751584950 | RRP: $55.00
    A leading criminologist on the uncomfortable statistical reality that home is where most killings happen. Evidence-driven and quietly devastating.
16. My Life with Murderers: Behind Bars with the World’s Most Violent Men — David Wilson | ISBN: 9780751574135 | RRP: $26.99
    Wilson spent years as a prison governor before becoming Britain’s best-known criminologist. This is the account of the men he managed, what he learned, and how it changed him.
17. Always Running: La Vida Loca — Gang Days in L.A. — Luis J Rodriguez | ISBN: 9780743276917 | RRP: $24.99
    A classic memoir of East LA gang life, written by a man who got out and then watched his own son go in. Raw, lyrical, and one of the essential American books on the subject.
18. We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops and Corruption in an American City — Justin Fenton | ISBN: 9780571356621 | RRP: $24.99
    The Baltimore Gun Trace Task Force — an elite police unit that was robbing the city it policed. Superb investigative reporting, later adapted into the acclaimed HBO series.