True Crime Audiobooks | Mystery, Thriller & Horror

Prescription for Pain: How a Once-Promising Doctor Became the 'Pill Mill Killer'

This haunting and propulsive debut follows a journalist's years-long investigation into his father's old classmate: former high school valedictorian Paul Volkman, who seemed destined for greatness after earning his MD and PhD from the prestigious University of Chicago, but is now serving four consecutive life sentences at a federal prison in Arizona. Volkman was the central figure in a massive 'pill mill' scheme in southern Ohio. His pain clinics accepted only cash, employed armed guards, and dispensed a torrent of opioid painkillers and other controlled substances. For nearly three years, Volkman remained in business despite raids by law enforcement and complaints from patients' family members. Prosecutors would ultimately link him to the overdose deaths of thirteen patients, though investigators explored his ties to at least twenty other deaths. This groundbreaking book is based on twelve years of correspondence and interviews with Volkman. Eil also traveled to nineteen states, interviewed more than 150 people, and filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the DEA that led to the release of nearly 20,000 pages of trial evidence. The American opioid epidemic is, like this book, a true crime story. Through this one doctor's story, an era of unfathomable tragedy is brought down to a tangible, and devastating, human scale.

Philip Eil (Author), Mike Lenz (Narrator)

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Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy: Defending America's Most Evil Serial Killer on Death Row

John Wayne Gacy raped, tortured, and murdered 33 boys and young men, burying most of them in the crawlspace under his Chicago home. Karen Conti was in high school at the time watching the bodies being removed on the television news. Fourteen years pass. Through a twist of fate, Conti, now a young and inexperienced attorney, is called upon to handle Gacy’s final death row appeals. The serial killer soon becomes her most famous, difficult, and haunting client. Thirty years after Gacy’s execution, Conti looks back through the eyes of a seasoned professional on the legal and media circus that ensued—and her countless hours of detailed conversation with the killer clown. We hear for the first time about Gacy’s gruesome “Body Book.” Were there more victims? Conspirators involved in the murders? What secrets were buried with him? If one were to ask Conti “How could you represent such a monster?,” she would respond “What you really want to know is, ‘What was he like?’” This book answers that question.

Karen Conti (Author), Karen Conti (Narrator)

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From the Moment They Met It Was Murder: Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir

The behind-the-scenes story of the quintessential film noir and cult classic, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity-its true crime origins and crucial impact on film history-is told for the first time in this riveting narrative published for the film's 80th anniversary. From real crime to serial to novel to movie, the history of Double Indemnity is as complex and exciting as the plot of any to hit the screen during film noir's classic period. Born of a true crime that inspired reporter and would-be crime writer James M. Cain's novella, Hollywood quickly bid on the rights but throughout the 1930s a strict code of censorship made certain that no studio could green-light a murder melodrama based on real events. Then World War II loosened some strictures, and director-writer Billy Wilder-before his prime as director of sparkling comedies-could hire hardboiled novelist Raymond Chandler and revamp the story enough to pass the censors. Overcoming strong resistance, Wilder then lined up a star cast led by the incomparable Barbara Stanwyck in her unforgettable turn as the ultimate femme fetale, alongside Fred MacMurray, cast against type as her partner in crime, and Edward G. Robinson as a bloodhound claims adjuster. With these skilled actors set against a low-key look, Wilder's final film became one of the earliest studio noirs to gain critical and commercial success (nominated for 7 Oscars!), to influence the entire noir movement, and to impact filmmakers and audiences to this day. Authors Alain Silver and James Ursini tell the complete history of Double Indemnity in their latest and most provocative work on film noir: From the Moment They Met It Was Murder.

Alain Silver, James Ursini (Author), Richard Poe, TBD (Narrator)

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The Devil to Pay: A Mobster's Road to Perdition

Goodfellas meets the Irish Mob in The Devil to Pay, the incredible true story of one man‘s unconventional upbringing in the criminal gangs of Boston and his eventual road to redemption. Growing up in South Boston, Sean Scott Hicks was running jobs for the Irish Mob before his voice changed. Mistreated by his drug-addled mother, Hicks found sanctuary with his adoptive family of felonious uncles—known to law enforcement officials as the Winter Hill Gang. These crooks knew where all the bodies were buried—because they’d done the burying—but they also looked out for young Sean. Even the notorious gangster known worldwide as Whitey Bulger was simply “Uncle Jim” to him. After such an upbringing, a life of crime was a given. In this unprecedented memoir, Hicks talks about everything from his experience running illegal goods up and down the coast of Massachusetts to his theory about what really happened the night three hundred million dollars’ worth of art went missing from Boston’s Isabella Gardner Museum. Terms like money laundering and assault insufficiently describe his daily tasks, a brash existence that alternated with stints behind bars. This knuckles-close look at mobster life chronicles the greed and avarice, tenderness and brutality, and the reckoning all gangsters must eventually face. Hicks tells a story of blood and vengeance but also—surprisingly—of hope. The Devil to Pay: A Mobster’s Road to Perdition is an extraordinary memoir that illuminates the reality of what it’s really like in the dark, dangerous, and insidious places of the world, and what it takes to bring a person there and back again.

Sean Scott Hicks (Author), Keith Szarabajka, TBD (Narrator)

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Murder in Manchuria: The True Story of a Jewish Virtuoso, Russian Fascists, a French Diplomat, and a

In Murder in Manchuria, Scott D. Seligman explores an unsolved murder set amid the chaos that reigned in China in the run-up to World War II. The story unfolds against the backdrop of a three-country struggle for control of Manchuria-an area some called China's 'Wild East'-and an explosive mixture of nationalities, religions, and ideologies. Semyon Kaspe, a young Jewish musician, is kidnapped, tortured, and ultimately murdered by disaffected, antisemitic White Russians, secretly acting on the orders of Japanese military overlords who covet his father's wealth. When local authorities deliberately slow-walk the search for the kidnappers, a young French diplomat takes over and launches his own investigation. Part cold-case thriller and part social history, the true, tragic saga of Kaspe is told in the context of the larger, improbable story of the lives of the twenty thousand Jews who called Harbin home at the beginning of the twentieth century. Scott D. Seligman recounts the events that led to their arrival and their hasty exodus-and solves a crime that has puzzled historians for decades.

Scott D. Seligman (Author), Eric Jason Martin (Narrator)

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The Deadly Path: How Operation Fast & Furious and Bad Lawyers Armed Mexican Cartels

Pete Forcelli was a highly respected federal agent in New York City, where he made an impact on violent crime by successfully targeting some of the city's most violent street gangs by using federal racketeering and continuing criminal enterprise statutes in conjunction with federal prosecutors. In early 2007, he was promoted to a supervisory position in Phoenix and quickly discovered that federal prosecutors were not charging criminals for violating federal firearms laws, even in instances where they knew guns were being trafficked to ultra-violent drug cartels. When those very same prosecutors spoke about possibly indicting John Dodson, a special agent who blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious, Forcelli stepped forward and contacted Congress. Forcelli became a whistleblower himself, detailing how federal prosecutors in Arizona not only failed to prosecute gun traffickers, but allowed a man who was making hundreds of hand grenades for the Sinaloa Cartel to continue his operations unabated for years. At that moment, those prosecutors and officials from the Department of Justice came after him, leading to a nearly four-year battle for Forcelli to clear his name. This book provides his insider's account of the scandal that stands as one of the worst stains on federal law enforcement.

Keelin Macgregor, Peter J. Forcelli (Author), Todd Mclaren (Narrator)

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A Murder in Hollywood: The Untold Story of Tinseltown's Most Shocking Crime

The dark story behind the bright lights of Tinseltown From the outside, Hollywood starlet Lana Turner seemed to have it all--a thriving film career, a beautiful daughter, and the kind of fame and fortune that most people could only dream of. But when the famous femme fatale began dating mobster Johnny Stompanato, thug for the infamous west coast mob boss Mickey Cohen, her personal life became violent and unpredictable. Lana's teenage daughter, Cheryl, watched her beloved mother's life deteriorate as Stompanato's intense jealousy took over. Eventually, the physical and emotional abuse became too much to bear, and Lana attempted to break it off with Johnny--with disastrous consequences. The details of what happened that fateful night remain foggy, but it ended in a series of frantic phone calls and Stompanato dead on Lana's bedroom floor, with Cheryl claiming to have plunged a knife into his abdomen in an attempt to protect her mother. The subsequent murder trial made for the biggest headlines of the year, its drama eclipsing every Hollywood movie. New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman pulls back Tinseltown's velvet curtain to reveal the dark underbelly of celebrity, rife with toxic masculinity and casual violence against women, and tells the story of Lana Turner and her daughter, who finally stood up to the abuse that plagued their family for years. A Murder in Hollywood transports us back to the golden age of film and illuminates one of the 20th century's most notorious true crime tales.

Casey Sherman (Author), Casey Sherman, TBD (Narrator)

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The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

Vivian Gordon went out before midnight in a velvet dress and mink coat. Her body turned up the next morning in a desolate Bronx park, a dirty clothesline wrapped around her neck. At her stylish Manhattan apartment, detectives discovered notebooks full of names—businessmen, socialites, gangsters. And something else—a letter from an anti-corruption commission established by Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Led by the imperious Judge Samuel Seabury, the commission had uncovered a police conspiracy to frame women as prostitutes. Had Vivian Gordon been executed to bury her secrets? As FDR pressed the police to solve her murder, Judge Seabury pursued the trail of corruption to the top of Gotham’s powerful political machine—the infamous Tammany Hall.

Michael Wolraich (Author), Kirsten Potter (Narrator)

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Zenith Man: Death, Love & Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom

In October 1997, the town of Ringgold, Georgia, was shaken by reports of a murder in its midst. A dead woman was found in Alvin Ridley's house-and even more shockingly, she was the wife no one knew he had. McCracken Poston had been a state representative before he lost his bid for US Congress and returned to his law career. Alvin Ridley was a local character who once sold and serviced Zenith televisions. Though reclusive and an outsider, the 'Zenith Man,' as Poston knew him, hardly seemed capable of murder. Alvin was a difficult client, storing evidence in a cockroach-infested suitcase, unwilling to reveal key facts to his defender. Calling on medical experts, testimony from Alvin himself, and a wealth of surprising evidence gleaned from Alvin's house, Poston presented a groundbreaking defense that allowed Alvin to return to his peculiar lifestyle, a free man. Years after his trial, Alvin was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, a revelation that sheds light on much of his lifelong personal battle. Part true crime, part courtroom drama, Zenith Man is also the moving story of an unexpected friendship between two very different men that changed-and perhaps saved-the lives of both.

Mccracken Poston Jr. (Author), Lee Goettl (Narrator)

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Jet Ride To Hell, Journey to Freedom

A riveting storyline that includes a sting operation carried out by 20-armed federal agents on the tarmac of a South Florida runway, and the tales of a prisoner living inside America’s maximum security prison, Leavenworth Penitentiary – this autobiography will captivate you from start to finish.Arrested With a Stolen JetIt was 9:05 in the morning. The sun was shining as our crew drove the silver Mercedes to meet the pilot of the Cessna Citation II jet taxiing toward us on the tarmac of the executive airfield in Florida.Something seemed off, but it was too late for the four of us to abort the mission.We were committed.The door of the plane opened, and off stepped the pilot I’d met with two days earlier at a Kansas City hotel room. He had agreed, for a price, to deliver a jet that was on our laundry list of planes we were stealing from the United States and delivering to the Colombians in South America.This was our second plane in a month. The pick-up place was Boca Raton, and the delivery location, Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands, where the plane would be repainted in a hanger, data plates changed, and then used in the cocaine trafficking world by the Cali Cartel.Later, I would discover two things: Boca Raton is translated, Mouth of the Rat, and a big rat was among us.I pulled a bag filled with cash from our vehicle and stepped onto the plane to meet the pilot to hand over a partial payment. The rest would be delivered once the plane was safely in the air. My pilot entered behind me in preparation to take the captain’s seat.In a matter of seconds, 20+ federal agents descended on us from all four sides, in unmarked vehicles and running on foot, all with weapons.The next thing I knew, a chrome 45 caliber pistol was pointed in my face while the agent was yelling, “Get your hands up, YOU ARE UNDER ARREST!”Everything was happening so fast. My head was spinning. My hands automatically went up in the air to display the international sign of surrender.

David C Hairabedian (Author), Rod Howard (Narrator)

Audiobook

Death in Old Mexico: The 1789 Dongo Murders and How They Shaped the History of a Nation

In a Mexico City mansion on October 23, 1789, Don Joaquin Dongo and ten of his employees were brutally murdered by three killers armed with machetes. Investigators worked tirelessly to find the perpetrators, who were publicly executed two weeks later. Labelled the 'crime of the century,' these events and their aftermath have intrigued writers of fiction and nonfiction for over two centuries. Using a vast range of sources, Nicole von Germeten recreates a paper trail of Enlightenment-era greed and savagery, and highlights how the violence of the Mexican judiciary echoed the acts of the murderers. The Spanish government conducted dozens of executions in Mexico City's central square in this era, revealing how European imperialism in the Americas influenced perceptions of violence and how it was tolerated, encouraged, or suppressed. An evocative history, Death in Old Mexico provides a compelling new perspective on late colonial Mexico City.

Nicole Von Germeten (Author), Stacy Gonzalez (Narrator)

Audiobook

Fritzie: The Invented Life and Violent Murder of a Flapper

Frieda 'Fritizie' Mann had several identities during her brief life, and the mysterious circumstances of her death raise as many questions as they do answers. She was born in 1903 near the present border between Poland and Ukraine. She and her family were Jewish immigrants who traveled to San Diego to find security and prosperity. In the last year of her life, Mann became locally famous. She had reinvented herself as a flapper and 'Oriental' dancer. She claimed to have friends in Hollywood and a movie contract. On the night of her murder, she said she was going to a party to meet her Hollywood friends; instead she traveled to an isolated roadside hotel where she met her death. An autopsy revealed that she was four and a half months pregnant. Historian Amy Absher guides the listener through the intricacies of this true crime story as it unfolded, from the initial flawed investigation to the sensationalized press coverage and the ultimate failure of the legal system to ensure justice on Mann's behalf. Like other 'new women' of her era, Fritzie Mann adopted roles that promised liberation from the control of men. In the end, her life and early death suggest the opposite: she became the victim of a culture that consumed women even as it purported to celebrate them. Contains mature themes.

Amy Absher (Author), Christina Delaine (Narrator)

Audiobook

True Crime Audiobooks in Mystery, Thriller & Horror