Episode 413: True Crime

Hello! Thank you for joining us on Reading With Libraries! We’re so glad you could be here to enjoy our book group podcast. This week we’re especially glad to have your company, since the genre we are discussing is True Crime!

Disclaimer: we will be having discussions of criminal activity and violence, so if that is not comfortable for you, maybe skip this episode and we’ll see you next week!

We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we support libraries of all types: schools, publics, academics, and special libraries and archives. We started this podcast to provide useful information for library people doing Reader’s Advisory work. There are so many books out there that it’s tough to be an expert on all of them. So we pick a new genre each week to chat about and hopefully provide you with some insight into what may be an unfamiliar genre!

We are so pleased to welcome back Guest Host Kelly from the St. Cloud Public Library! 

Beverages:

Each week we like to connect the theme of our books with our beverages, and we each came prepared with our own drink to enjoy while we talk about our books. Today, we’re having drinks related to crimes or the people that solve them. 

Each of our beverages will have a recipe or a link on our episode page, so you can try them yourself.

Black Dahlia Martini 

  • The Black Dahlia is named after Elizabeth Short, the notorious victim who walked out of the Millennium Biltmore and was later found mutilated in Leimert Park. She later became known as the “Black Dahlia,” a derivative of Raymond Chandler’s popular novel, The Blue Dahlia, and the crime became one of the most publicized in the history of the city. 
  • Fill a mixing glass with ice
  • 3 1/2 oz Vanilla Vodka
  • 1/4 oz Black Raspberry Liqueur
  • 1/4 oz Coffee Liqueur
  • Stir. Strain into chilled glass and garnish with orange
  • http://mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.com/2011/05/detectives-their-drink-cocktail-recipes.html

The Detective 

  • 1 oz bourbon
  • ½ oz coffee liquer
  • ½ cup brewed coffee
  • ½ oz simple syrup
  • 1-2 dashes orange bitters
  • pour everything into a cocktail shaker, fill it with ice, shake it just 7 – 10 times and then strain into a tumbler over fresh ice.
  • http://iatethewholething.com/the-detective/

Pink Police (makes a pitcher to share!)

Genre Discussion:

According to Wikipedia, True crime is a non-fiction literary and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people.

True crime books often center on sensational, shocking, or strange events, particularly murder. Even though murder makes up less than 20% of reported crime, it is present in most true crime stories. 

Typically, these books report on a crime from the beginning of its investigation to its legal proceedings.[6]

True crime comes in many forms, such as books, films, podcasts, and television shows. Many works in this genre recount high-profile, sensational crimes such as the JonBenét Ramsey killing, the O. J. Simpson murder case, and the Pamela Smart murder, while others are devoted to more obscure slayings.


This article from JSTOR describes some of the debate surrounding the genre of true crime.  

That anybody benefits—through monetary gain or personal titillation—from domestic murder, sex crimes, and grotesque violence seems distasteful, and so we want to consign true crime to the lowest rungs of culture. 

Yet the genre’s long, rich history shows us that there is much more to true crime than penny dreadfuls and blood-spattered paperbacks. 

Since the early modern murder pamphlet, true crime has asked us to consider how we, as a society, both contribute to and learn from the most shocking acts of our age.

Suggested Reading Resources:

Book Discussion

Now that we’re more familiar with the background of the true crime genre, let’s get to the book discussion! We share a wide range of books on all sorts of crime; you are sure to find one that is interesting to you – or to your patrons.

Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood, by Julie Gregory @julieSickened

The Baby Thief: The True Story of the Woman Who Sold Over Five Thousand Neglected, Abused and Stolen Babies in the 1950s, by Barbara Bisantz Raymond

Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest, by Gregg Olsen @Gregg_Olsen

Memoir of a Milk Carton Kid, by Tanya Nicole Kach and Lawrence H. Fisher

The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century, by Kirk Wallace Johnson

Green River Killer: A True Detective Story, by Jeff Jensen @EWDocJensen

Flesh Collectors: Cannibalism and Further Depravity on the Redneck Riviera, by Fred Rosen

Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original “Psycho” by Harold Schechter

The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery, by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James @billjamesonline and @rmccarthyjames

The Most Dangerous Animal of All: Searching for My Father . . . and Finding the Zodiac Killer, by Gary L. Stewart @EarlVanBest and Susan Mustafa @SusanMustafa

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, by Erik Larson @exlarson

Conclusion

Thank you so much for joining us for this fascinating and chilling discussion of True Crime! We appreciate our Guest Host Kelly sharing all her knowledge and enthusiasm on this subject, and thank you for listening! If you need to triple-check your doors are locked and sleep with the light on tonight, we totally understand.

Join us next Thursday with another genre, more guest hosts for our book group, and more books to share and discuss. 

Be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss a single episode! And if you want to hear more about the work we do in libraries – which is always interesting! – subscribe to our podcast Linking Our Libraries.

Bring your book ideas, bring your beverages, and join us back here on Thursday!