Books like The Executioner's Song

01

In Cold Blood

Truman Capote · Memoir

Truman Capote's account of the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas — and of the investigation, capture, trial, and execution of the killers Perry Smith and Richard Hickock — is the founding document of the true crime genre and one of the most admired works of American nonfiction of the twentieth century.

Shares violence and justice with The Executioner's Song.

02

The Devil in the White City

Erik Larson · History

The Devil in the White City tells two stories that unfolded simultaneously in Chicago in 1893.

A kindred memoir read.

03

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

Patrick Radden Keefe · History

Say Nothing opens with a scene that sets its register precisely: Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten, is dragged from her Belfast flat by a gang of masked strangers in December 1972 and never seen alive again.

Both dig into justice.

04

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Laura Hillenbrand · Biography

Unbroken follows Louis Zamperini from his juvenile delinquency in Depression-era California to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he ran the 5,000 meters at nineteen and briefly caught Hitler's attention.

A kindred memoir read.

05

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.

Shares violence and american west with The Executioner's Song.

06

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.

07

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.

08

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.

09

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.

10

Spare

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex · Memoir

Spare is Prince Harry's account of his life from childhood through his decision to step back from senior royal duties in 2020.

Both dig into media.

11

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.

12

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.