True Crime Essentials

 

I believe fiction works best with a healthy artery of fact pumping truth, vitality, and credulity through the body of the story. For mystery, crime, and/or thriller writers, true crime is your best go-to for that life-blood to your story. Of course there are also scholarly journals, I mean if you’re just having trouble sleeping...

But there is also a wealth of information out there, in the form of true crime. The true crime folks mostly write to understand how men and women break bad from serial killers to the P.T. Barnums just looking to turn a salacious buck. The following list represents what I feel are the best true-crime books out there to inform your bad men and tough women. Please note: there’s not a single title on serial killers. I don’t read it, so I can’t recommend a title on the subject.

 

Cocaine Politics

Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall chronicle the drug trade, from the 1975 Church Committee dissection of the CIA crimes, (including drug trafficking in and out of Vietnam) to the elder President Bush’s ill-conceived “war on drugs,” in acute, academic detail. Those details come from declassified documents and congressional committee notes. Published by the University of California Press, Cocaine Politics is the closest of any of these titles to academic journals and it is not a “lite” read. However, Cocaine Politics will reward the diligent student with a wealth of unsettling information on just how dirty the “good guys” got. 

Obviously, this book is most beneficial to crime/thriller writers but there’s a wealth of information here for world-builders, as well. Read Cocaine Politics as a companion to Jon Roberts and Evan Wright’s American Desperado. Roberts’ claim of using Richard Nixon’s personal plane to transport drugs becomes all-too credible when considering how far into the halls of power drug money and drug corruption spread.

Where the Money Is: True Tales from the Bank Robbery Capital of the World 

FBI Special Agent William J. Rehder and Gordon Dillow explore bank robbery in Los Angeles from the 1960s to the 1990s in close detail. Dillow, a news writer, can be forgiven for “pulping up” the prose at times. Likewise, Rehder’s attempts at cynical humor doesn’t always land. Where the Money Is works best when it focuses on the cast of unlikely characters who take down scores. Rehder and Dillow’s book is a must-read for anyone writing a modern bank-job story. It will also inform mystery and thriller writers attempting to get the cadence and rhythm of these crime unicorns. 

The Reckoning

Spanning over 500 years, from Medici banker princes to Wall Street raiders, MacArthur Genius Award winner Jacob Soll presents a concise and engrossing history of accounting as a tool of industry but also as a financial crowbar for larceny. Through the lens of finance we witness the fall of nobility, (18th Century France) and the rise of industrial democracies, (19th Century England) and ultimately, the wages of deregulated hubris when the check comes due in 2008. Don’t let the subject matter or Mr. Soll’s accolades discourage you—this book is sharp, fast, and engrossing. The Reckoning reads like a crime epic. Again, this is a book that can inform writers across genres. It’ll also make you look at your bank/investment statements a little closer.

Temples of Chance

Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston’s account of the rise of casinos in the U.S. from dusty Nevada saloons to multi-billion-dollar adult theme parks is a must-read. With names, dates, and bankruptcy outcomes, Johnston’s book is a detailed exploration of how Bill Harrah, Frank Rosenthal, and Steve Wynn made good on casinos, often at the expense of everyone else. Temples of Chance is also a profile in arrogance, or,  how Griffin, Trump, and Milken goofed up a “can’t lose” business. If you think you know this story from the Scorcese film, read Temples of Chance, ideally, as a companion to Nicholas Peleggi’s Casino which is the book Mr. Scorcese’s film is based on. While this may not inform the mystery/thriller writers as much as the crime folks, there is a wealth of human dynamics and BIG drama in factual detail that will benefit any writer as a how-to for conflict.

The Prince 

Niccolo Machiavelli’s treatise is a classic of western civilization and western thought. If the last time you read it was in a political theory class, revisit it as an adult, especially in light of recent events. At a fast 110 pages, The Prince is a concise guide to the acquisition and exercise of political power. Machiavelli’s masterpiece influenced authors from Alexander Hamilton to  Alexandre Dumas, Frank Herbert to Jacqueline Carey. So, a quick read-through will smarten up your science fiction world build, the political system of your epic fantasy, or give you the motivation your villain may lack. After all, there is a reason why Machiavelli’s name is also an adjective. Oh, I hear you miscreants in the back, asking “What does it have to do with crime?” Read Mario Puzzo’s seminal crime saga, The Godfather and then you tell me. 

Unsolicited sidenote: The Prince  is perhaps the work that has most influenced my professional life as well as my writing.

As always, I stand up to be corrected. Let me know what you think.

The photo at the top, “Intellectual Arsenal” is by yours truly.