Modern True Crime

When acclaimed mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers first began compiling anthologies of the best crime stories in the 1920s and ’30s, the genre was in the flush of its first golden age. While it is hard to imagine today - after every possible mystery plot has been told, retold, subverted, and played straight again by hundreds of writers over nearly a century - in Sayers’s day there were still twists that had never been seen, and machinations of crime that would shock even jaded Jazz Age fans.

It is no secret that true crime murder stories are not for the faint of heart. They can lead you to double-check your windows and doors at night, and question everything you thought or believed about human nature. Yet they are intriguing and fascinating at the same time. What is it that makes us different from those who take the lives of others? That is a question that many ask themselves, and these true crime stories help to identify the method and psychology behind some of the most terrifying killers in modern history.

Murder, terrorism, and mass killings were prominent in the news for 2018, and in this true crime anthology, you will find the cases that made international headlines from January to the end of December.

Forcible Confinement is a study of the warped thinking that went into some of the world's most macabre crimes, as well as a clinical examination of the purpose-built rooms, hidden spaces, and soundproofed dungeons prepared for victims.