Books like In Cold Blood

01

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

Bryan Stevenson · Memoir

Bryan Stevenson's memoir of his career as a capital defense attorney in Alabama, and specifically of his years working on the case of Walter McMillian — a Black man wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Monroe County, Alabama — is simultaneously a riveting legal narrative and a sustained moral argument about the American criminal justice system's treatment of the poor and of Black defendants.

Both dig into justice.

02

This Boy's Life

Tobias Wolff · Memoir

Tobias Wolff's memoir of his childhood in the 1950s, moving with his peripatetic mother from Florida to Utah to Seattle to the logging town of Concrete, Washington, is one of the finest examples of what might be called the stepfather memoir — a genre that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s as writers processed childhoods marked by violence, instability, and the particular powerlessness of being a child under an adult's authority.

Both dig into violence.

03

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

John Carreyrou · Business

Bad Blood is Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou's account of Theranos, the blood-testing startup founded by Elizabeth Holmes that claimed its proprietary technology could run hundreds of diagnostic tests from a single finger-prick of blood.

A kindred memoir read.

04

The Executioner's Song

Norman Mailer · Memoir

The Executioner's Song is Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of Gary Gilmore, the convicted murderer who in 1977 became the first person executed in the United States after the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.

Shares violence and justice with In Cold Blood.

05

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry · Memoir

Helter Skelter is the account of the Tate-LaBianca murders of August 1969 written by Vincent Bugliosi, the Los Angeles deputy district attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson, with journalist Curt Gentry.

Both dig into violence.

06

Know My Name: A Memoir

Chanel Miller · Memoir

Know My Name is Chanel Miller's memoir of being sexually assaulted behind a dumpster at Stanford University in 2015, being identified publicly as only "Emily Doe" throughout the subsequent trial, and the experience of navigating a legal process while the perpetrator — Stanford swimmer Brock Turner — became the more visible subject of the story.

Both dig into justice.

07

Red Notice

Bill Browder · Memoir

Red Notice is Bill Browder's account of how he became one of the largest foreign investors in Russia after the Soviet collapse, was subsequently expelled by the Kremlin, and then spent years fighting for justice after his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was arrested, tortured, and killed in a Russian detention facility in 2009.

Both dig into justice.

08

The Monster of Florence

Douglas Preston · Memoir

Between 1974 and 1985, a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence murdered sixteen people — couples parked in cars in the hills outside the city — and was never conclusively identified.

Both dig into true crime.

09

Twelve Years a Slave

Solomon Northup · Memoir

Twelve Years a Slave, published in 1853, is the memoir of Solomon Northup, a free Black man from New York who was kidnapped in 1841, sold into slavery in Louisiana, and held for twelve years before recovering his freedom.

Both dig into justice.

10

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

Jon Krakauer · Memoir

Under the Banner of Heaven opens with a specific crime: in 1984, Ron and Dan Lafferty — members of a fundamentalist Mormon splinter group — murdered their sister-in-law Brenda and her infant daughter, acting on a "revelation" they believed came directly from God.

Both dig into violence.

11

A Theory of Justice

John Rawls · Philosophy

A Theory of Justice, published in 1971, is John Rawls's attempt to construct a systematic alternative to utilitarianism in political philosophy.

Both dig into justice.

12

Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion

Paul Bloom · Psychology

Paul Bloom's argument is not that we should care less about others.

Both dig into empathy.