On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of...

The series examines each piece of forensic evidence, each witness, each possible lead, and each turn in the road that ultimately leads detectives to their killer.

"A gripping tour de force of investigative journalism that takes us deep into the investigation behind one of the most frightening and enigmatic serial killers in modern American history, and into the ranks of a singular American police force: the Anchorage PD Most of us have never heard of Israel Keyes. But he is one of the most ambitious, meticulous serial killers of modern time. The FBI considered his behavior unprecedented. Described by a prosecutor...

For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area. Three decades later, true crime journalist Michelle McNamara was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over...

"From New York Times bestselling author Pete Earley comes the true story of a young man [Anthony Ciaglia] who suffers a traumatic brain injury that renders him incapable of judging or feeling repulsion, and subsequently becomes the most trusted confidant of numerous imprisoned serial killers"--

This book is an incisive investigation into the many shortcomings of the justice system brought to light in the story of a grievously mishandled murder case in South Carolina that left an innocent man facing execution. At the age of twenty-three, Edward Lee Elmore, a black man, was arrested after the body of a white widow was found, brutally beaten, in the closet of her home. Elmore was an unlikely killer: semiliterate, mentally retarded with a fifth-grade...

Aaron Hernandez was a college All-American who became the youngest player in the NFL and later reached the Super Bowl. Yet he led a secret life, one that ended in a maximum security prison. All-American Murder is the first book to investigate Aaron Hernandez's first-degree murder conviction and the mystery of his own untimely and shocking death. Drawing on original and in-depth reporting, this is an explosive true story of a life cut short in the...

"Raised an aristocrat in Colombia and educated in European schools, Pilar transfixes everyone with her charm and her guile. She also falls for dangerous men and finds herself drawn into the highest levels of the cocaine trade. After two failed marriages and a harrowing escape from the drug life, she settles down to a quiet existence in Florida with her children--until her second husband tries to cut short his prison term by giving her name over to...

Elizabeth Lochtefeld was a glowing, charismatic and driven woman who'd built a million-dollar fortune in Manhattan before settling into a new life in one of America's most elite resort communities. She'd planned to dedicate the rest of her life to charity-and to marry and finally start a family of her own. When Lochtefeld met thrity-seven-year-old Tim Toolan- a tall, strapping, handsome, and Columbia graduate and Wall Street ace who'd made it to Vice...

One of NPR's "Books We Love"
New York Times Book Review's "The Best True Crime of 2022"
"Rich in historical perspective and graced by novelistic touches, grips the reader from first to last.”—Wall Street Journal
A suspense filled tale of murder on the American frontier—shedding new light on a family of serial killers in Kansas, whose horrifying crimes gripped the attention...