Any true crime horror fans here? Recommendations?

I've enjoyed several true crime books like Helter Skelter and Fatal Vision plus many books by Ann Rule

While these books might not always be classified as 'horror' they often show the lives of some horrific human beings.

Anybody here want to recommend some other good true crime horror authors and books? Stories about killers like Gacy, Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, etc.

I imagine somebody is already working on a book on Anders Behring Breivik.

The Monster of Florence is about a serial killer in Florence, Italy, and how the author was dragged into the investigation. Quite good!

Rites of Burial by Tom Jackman is about Bob Berdella, a homosexual serial killer of Kansas City, MO who tortured over a number of days seven young men, six of whom he eventually killed while the last survived. This
The Torture Doctor is about H.H. Holmes, one of the first American serial killers.
The Monster of Dusseldorf is about Peter Kurten, the Vampire of Dusseldorf.
Sex Crimes in History by R.E.L. Masters is an extremely graphic and disturbing book from the 60s about various lust murderers, cannibals, necrophiles and other sex criminals from history, ranging from Gilles de Rais to Albert Fish. Similar to this is the more recent A New Century of Sex Killers which has chapters on John Christie, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, Jeffrey Dahmer and Andrei Chikatilo. Quite graphic.
Comrade Chikatilo was an excellent book detailing the Chikatilo case, a Russian serial killer who murdered 52 young people, mutilating and eating portions of them. Right now I'm halfway through the popular The Stranger Beside Me, and am eager to read The Only Living Witness along with The Co-Ed Killer.

I read a good one a while ago called On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Malloy by Simon Read about an incompetant group of crooks that repeatedly tries to murder a stumbling drunk to collect some insurance. I wrote a review of that one if you are interested.

He wrote another one called In the Dark: The True Story of the Blackout Ripper about a serial killer that stalked London during the Blitz.

Harold Schecter has a string of true crime books about famous serial killers. There's: Depraved about H.H. Holmes, Deviant about Ed Gein and Deranged about Albert Fish. There's others too.

There's always The Devil in the White City, again about H.H. Holmes.

why not just get a huge book about serial killers. It would probably not go as in depth but it would have more examples...

Also skcentral.com might be a good place to ask around. It is a forum for people that are interested in serial killers.

Thanks ScribbleScribe, will check out that site. Not interrested in only serial killers and a big book about them might miss telling the story and read more like a historical account of their activities. However, I'm open to specific books if you have any recommendations?

Thanks jseger9000 (I've read some Schecter before, thanks for the reminder), doomented and drneutron thank you for your suggestions as well.

Why not just go on a true crime forum then? Do they exist I wonder...

Edgar allan poe (wary)

Happy Like Murderers by Gordon Burn, about Fred & Rose West. It's the nearest a true crime book has come to horror, it's very well written but completely factual.
His other book, Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son, about the Yorkshire Ripper, is meant to be just as good.

#11 - Happy Like Murderers sounds promising. The prices for a used copy on Amazon are shocking though. Maybe I'll shop around for a copy when I get home.

12 - please do, I'd love to know what you think. I enjoy true crime but haven't come across anything that compares.

try killing for company, a classic about Britain's version of Jeffrey Dahmer.

Most recenlty read http://www.librarything.com/work/8611954. Had seen Clint Eastwood's "Changeling," which focuses on one of the murdered boys. They took a little creative license in the boy's story. But the book is about another, teenage, boy who was trapped on that murder ranch with his psychotic uncle. The uncle was hanged. The boy went on to attempt a normal life after seeing so much evil.

Are there any books about Leopold and Leob anyone could recommend?

I learned about the case through Hitchcock's Rope and have been looking on and off for a book about it.

#16 jseger9000
Though this is not an entire book on the Leopold and Leob case, Attorney for the Damned by Arthur Weinberg is a book that has parts of the transcipts and final summations before the juries that Clarence Darrow's made in his defence trials. Darrow was the lawyer representing Leopold and Loeb and in this book is Darrow's plea against capital punishment for these two and to convict on insanity. I am not sure but something tells me this is one of the earliest, if not the first, insanity plea. Anyway, I read it a long time ago but remember it as a very interesting book.

#17 - Hey! Your rec lead me to the 'Leopold and Loeb' tag which then led me to Leopold and Loeb: THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY, Compulsion, For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago and Never the Sinner. Not all are true crime, but all are based on L&L and all deserve a little more research by me!