True Crime Audiobooks | Mystery, Thriller & Horror

Killing for You: A Brave Soldier, a Beautiful Dancer, and a Shocking Double Murder

Twenty-six-year-old actor Daniel Wozniak was unemployed, facing eviction, and deep in debt for his upcoming wedding. So he devised a diabolical plan: He asked his neighbor Sam Herr, a young war veteran, to help him move some things into the attic of an empty theater. There, Wozniak shot Herr twice in the head before taking his ATM card and cell phone. Hours later, Wozniak performed on stage with his fiancee in a local production of the musical Nine, convinced that he had gotten away with murder . . . Wozniak dismembered his victim's body and hid the pieces. Then he lured Herr's college friend Juri "Julie" Kibuishi to Herr's apartment and shot her twice in the head. The police immediately declared Herr a prime suspect-just as Wozniak had planned. But when Herr was declared missing, and his ATM withdrawals led authorities to Wozniak at his bachelor party, the actor was forced to play the role of a lifetime in a shocking murder investigation that would be his greatest-and final-performance . . .

Keith Elliot Greenberg (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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Killing Season: The Unsolved Case of New England's Deadliest Serial Killer

A New York Times–bestselling journalist traces a string of unsolved murders—and the botched investigation that let the New Bedford Highway Killer walk away. Over the course of seven months in 1988, eleven women disappeared off the streets of New Bedford, Massachusetts, a gloomy, drug-addled coastal town that was once the whaling capital of the world. Nine turned up dead. Two were never found. And the perpetrator remains unknown to this day. How could such a thing happen? How, in what was once one of America's richest cities, could the authorities let their most vulnerable citizens down this badly? As Carlton Smith, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his coverage of the Green River Killer case, demonstrates in this riveting account, it was the inability of police officers and politicians alike to set aside their personal agendas that let a psychopath off the hook. In Killing Season, Smith takes readers into a close-knit community of working-class men and women, an underworld of prostitution and drug abuse, and the halls of New England law enforcement to tell the story of an epic failure of justice.

Carlton Smith (Author), John Glouchevitch (Narrator)

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Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America

In the tenth audiobook in the multimillion-selling Killing series, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard take on their most controversial subject yet: The Mob. Killing the Mob is the tenth audiobook in Bill O'Reilly's #1 New York Times bestselling series of popular narrative histories, with sales of nearly 18 million copies worldwide, and over 320 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. O’Reilly and co-author Martin Dugard trace the brutal history of 20th Century organized crime in the United States, and expertly plumb the history of this nation’s most notorious serial robbers, conmen, murderers, and especially, mob family bosses. Covering the period from the 1930s to the 1980s, O’Reilly and Dugard trace the prohibition-busting bank robbers of the Depression Era, such as John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby-Face Nelson. In addition, the authors highlight the creation of the Mafia Commission, the power struggles within the “Five Families,” the growth of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, the mob battles to control Cuba, Las Vegas and Hollywood, as well as the personal war between the U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy and legendary Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. O’Reilly and Dugard turn these legendary criminals and their true-life escapades into a listen that rivals the most riveting crime novel. With Killing the Mob, their hit series is primed for its greatest success yet. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard (Author), Robert Petkoff (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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Killing Women: The True Story of Serial Killer Don Miller's Reign of Terror

Will a serial killer soon walk the streets again? Don Miller was quiet and reserved. As a former youth pastor, he seemed a devout Christian. No one would have ever suspected that the recent graduate of the Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice was a serial killer. However, when Miller was arrested for the attempted murder of two teenagers in 1978, police quickly realized he was probably responsible for the disappearances of four women. Offered a still-controversial plea bargain, he led police to the bodies of the missing women. Now, after forty years in prison, Miller has served his time and is due to be released into an unsuspecting population. In Killing Women, author Rod Sadler examines the crimes, the "justice" meted out, and the impending freedom of a man nationally renowned psychiatrist Dr. Frank Ochberg described as "a member of a small, deadly, dangerous population: murderers who stalk, capture, torture, and kill; murderers who derive sexual and narcissistic gratification from their predation; murderers who maintain a 'mask of sanity' appearing normal and harmless."

Rod Sadler (Author), Peter Berkrot (Narrator)

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Killings

True stories of sudden death in the classic collection by a master of American journalism 'Reporters love murders,' Calvin Trillin writes in the introduction to Killings. 'In a pinch, what the lawyers call 'wrongful death ' will do, particularly if it 's sudden.' Killings, first published in 1984 and expanded for this edition, shows Trillin to be such a reporter, drawn time after time to tales of sudden death. But Trillin is attracted less by violence or police procedure than by the way the fabric of people 's lives is suddenly exposed when someone comes to an untimely end. As Trillin says, Killings is 'more about how Americans live than about how some of them die.' These stories, which originally appeared in The New Yorker between 1969 and 2010, are vivid portraits of lives cut short. An upstanding farmer in Iowa finds himself drastically changed by a woman he meets in a cocktail lounge. An eccentric old man in Eastern Kentucky is enraged by the presence of a documentary filmmaker. Two women move to a bucolic Virginia county to find peace, only to end up at war over a shared road. Mexican American families in California hand down a feud from generation to generation. A high-living criminal-defense lawyer in Miami acquires any number of enemies capable of killing him. Stark and compassionate, deeply observed and beautifully written, Killings is 'that rarity, reportage as art' (William Geist, The New York Times Book Review). Praise for Killings 'Riveting tales of murder and mayhem. . . . [Calvin] Trillin is a superb writer, with a magical ability to turn even the most mundane detail into spellbinding wonder. Armed with this wealth of material, he utterly shines. Every piece here is a gem.' The Seattle Times 'What Mr. Trillin does so well, what makes Killings literature, is the way he pictures the lives that were interrupted by the murders. Even the most ordinary life makes a terrible noise . . . when it 's broken off.' Anatole Broyard, The New York Times 'Fascinating, troubling . . . In each of these stories is the basis of a Dostoevskian novel.' Edward Abbey, Chicago Sun-Times 'The stories . . . are unforgettable. They leave us, finally, with the awareness of the unknowable opacity of the human heart.' Bruce Colman, San Francisco Chronicle '[Trillin] writes brilliantly. . . . These stories still hold up, as classics.' The Buffalo News 'In his artful ability to conjure up a whole life and a whole world, Trillin comes as close to achieving the power of a Chekhov short story as can anyone whose material is so implacably tied to fact.' Frederick Iseman, Harper 's Bazaar 'I have a book for you true-crime addicts if you 're caught up on the podcast Serial, the cascade on TV of 48 Hours and Dateline NBC episodes. . . . It 's time to pick up Calvin Trillin 's Killings.' The New York Times Book Review 'Well-crafted and thoughtfully composed, lacking judgment and admonishment, these are a true piece of quality journalism, which clearly continues to captivate audiences.' Library Journal 'With telling detail and shrewd insights, [Calvin Trillin] masterfully evokes the places and personalities that hatched these grim episodes.' Publishers Weekly

Calvin Trillin (Author), Robert Fass (Narrator)

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Kilo: Life and Death Inside the Secret World of the Cocaine Cartels

Brought to you by Penguin. Join the deadly journey of cocaine, from farmer to kingpin. Meet Maria. Maria doesn’t see herself as a criminal. She’s just a farmhand picking the crops that never lose money: coca. This is Cachote. He prays to the Virgin of the Assassins that his bullets find their target. If he misses, he’ll have to answer to the cartel who pay him to take out their enemies. Pedro works the coca labs. But this laboratory is hidden deep in the jungle, and he turns coca leaves in to coca paste, a step just short of cocaine. And finally, here is Alex. Alex is a drug-lord and decides where the drug goes next: into Europe or the US. And he wields the power of life and death over everyone around him. In Kilo, Toby Muse takes us deeper into the mechanism of the drug trade than ever before, following a kilo of cocaine as it travels from its origins to the street. On the ground in the drug war for over a decade, earning the trust of those involved on all sides, Toby Muse takes us with him through the endless blood-soaked horror and economic logic at every level of the journey of the world’s most alluring and dangerous drug. We come to meet and ultimately understand the tainted personal psychology and motivations of each player in this dark El Dorado. But there are no winners here. Anyone who tries to hold the power of the ‘white goddess’ cocaine is ultimately undone, violently stripped of their humanity, their souls and their lives in this endless, pointless dance of death. © Toby Muse 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Toby Muse (Author), Alex Wyndham (Narrator)

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King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor

The spellbinding tale of hustler Edgar Laplante-the king of Jazz Age con artists-who becomes the victim of his own dangerous game. Edgar Laplante was a smalltime grifter, an erstwhile vaudeville performer, and an unabashed charmer. But after years of playing thankless gigs and traveling with medicine shows, he decided to undertake the most demanding and bravura performance of his life. In the fall of 1917, Laplante reinvented himself as Chief White Elk: war hero, sports star, civil rights campaigner, Cherokee nation leader-and total fraud. Under the pretenses of raising money for struggling Native American reservations, Laplante dressed in buckskins and a feathered headdress and traveled throughout the American West, narrowly escaping exposure and arrest each time he left town. When the heat became too much, he embarked upon a lucrative continent-hopping tour that attracted even more enormous crowds, his cons growing in proportion to the adulation of his audience. As he moved through Europe, he spied his biggest mark on the Riviera: a prodigiously rich Hungarian countess, who was instantly smitten with the con man. The countess bankrolled a lavish trip through Italy that made Laplante a darling of the Mussolini regime and a worldwide celebrity, soaring to unimaginable heights on the wings of his lies. But then, at the pinnacle of his improbable success, Laplante's overreaching threatened to destroy him… In King Con, Paul Willetts brings this previously untold story to life in all its surprising absurdity, showing us how our tremendous capacity for belief and our longstanding obsession with celebrity can make fools of us all-and proving that sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Paul Willetts (Author), Ray Porter (Narrator)

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King of the Godfathers: "Big Joey" Massino and the Fall of the Bonanno Crime Family

The Last Of The Old-World Mob Bosses-And The Ultimate Betrayal For more than twenty years, Joseph 'Big Joey' Massino ran what was called the largest criminal network in the US, employing over two hundred and fifty made men and untold numbers of associates. The Bonanno family was responsible for over thirty murders, even killing a dozen of its own members to enforce discipline and settle scores. He would be brought down by Salvatore 'Good Looking Sal' Vitale, the underboss who was not only Massino's closest and most trusted friend, but also his brother-in-law. In the end, facing the death penalty and the prospect of leaving his family penniless, Massino started talking to the FBI-the first Mafia Godfather to break the sacred code of omerta, and the end of a centuries-old tradition. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Anthony DeStefano, who interviewed Massino's family and friends as well as law enforcement officials and confidential sources, King of the Godfathers is the story of the brutal mob war that made Massino head of the Bonanno family and the most powerful gangster in America.

Anthony M. DeStefano (Author), Danny Campbell (Narrator)

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Kings of Cocaine: Inside the Medellin Cartel an Astonishing True Story of Murder Money and Internati

This is the story of the most successful cocaine dealers in the world: Pablo Escobar Gaviria, Jorge Luis Ochoa Vasquez, Carlos Lehder Rivas and Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha. In the 1980s they controlled more than fifty percent of the cocaine flowing into the United States. The cocaine trade is capitalism on overdrive-supply meeting demand on exponential levels. Here you'll find the story of how the modern cocaine business started and how it turned a ragtag group of hippies and sociopaths into regal kings as they stumbled from small-time suitcase smuggling to levels of unimaginable sophistication and daring. The $2 billion dollar system eventually became so complex that it required the manipulation of world leaders, corruption of revolutionary movements, and the worst kind of violence to protect.

Guy Gugliotta, Jeff Leen (Author), Paul Woodson (Narrator)

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Kiss Me, Kill Me

The dark side of love is no fairy tale.... And while we may like to believe that crimes of the heart only victimize those who aren't careful, this shocking collection of real-life accounts will convince you otherwise. America's #1 true-crime writer, Ann Rule reveals how lovers become predators, how sex and lust can push ordinary people to desperate acts, and how investigators and forensics experts work to unravel the most entangled crimes of passion. Extracting behind-the-scenes details, Rule makes these volatile relationships utterly real, and masterfully re-creates the ill-fated chains of events in such cases as the ex-Marine and martial arts master who seduced vulnerable women and then destroyed their lives...the killer whose calling card was a single bloodred rose...the faithless wife who manipulated and murdered without conscience...the blind date that set the stage for a killer's brutality...and more. In every case, the victim - young and innocent or older and experienced - unknowingly trusted a stranger with the sociopathic skill to hide their dark motives, until it was too late to escape a web of deadly lies, fatal promises, and homicidal possession.

Ann Rule (Author), Laural Merlington (Narrator)

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Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World

‘When you pick this book up, you won’t be able to put it down’ Misha Glenny, author of McMafia ‘A powerful, appalling, and stunningly reported exposé … It reads like fiction, but unfortunately is all too true’ Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money ‘A must-read … Magisterial’ Washington Post ‘Read Kleptopia now’ Roberto Saviano, bestselling author of Gomorrah ‘[A] landmark book’ Jon Snow They are everywhere, the thieves and their people. Masters of secrecy. Until now we have detected their presence only by what they leave behind. A body in a burned-out Audi. Workers riddled with bullets in the Kazakh desert. A rigged election in Zimbabwe. A British banker silenced and humiliated for trying to expose the truth about the City of London. They have amassed more money than most countries. But what they are really stealing is power. In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning investigative journalist Tom Burgis weaves together four stories that reveal a terrifying global web of corruption: the troublemaker from Basingstoke who stumbles on the secrets of a Swiss bank, the ex-Soviet billionaire constructing a private empire, the righteous Canadian lawyer with a mysterious client, and the Brooklyn crook protected by the CIA. Kleptopia follows the dirty money that is flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators and poisoning democracies. From the Kremlin to Beijing, Harare to Riyadh, Paris to the White House, it shows how the thieves are uniting – and the terrible human cost. While we are looking the other way, all that we hold most dear is being stolen.

Tom Burgis (Author), Tom Burgis (Narrator)

Audiobook

True Crime Audiobooks in Mystery, Thriller & Horror