I read "Outrageous Conduct" and really liked how detailed it was, without coming off as pretentious – i.e. use of big words, just reporting of the facts in a simple, easy to understand manner that was also very thrilling. Are there any other books like that, whether it be true crime or just history?
by MajorMonogram25
3 Comments
In Cold Blood. Devil In the White City. People Who Eat Darkness.
If *Outrageous Conduct* hit the sweet spot for you—clean, gripping, fact-first storytelling without the academic fluff—there are definitely others that deliver that same straight-cut adrenaline.
Here are a few that stay grounded in *accessible intensity*:
**1.** ***Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil*** **by John Berendt**
Reads like fiction, but it’s all true. A murder in Savannah, but the real draw is the cast of eccentric characters and the quiet unraveling of a community. Berendt doesn’t try to dazzle you with language, just immerses you in the weird and real.
**2.** ***The Journalist and the Murderer*** **by Janet Malcolm**
A fascinating look at ethics in true crime journalism itself. Very lean writing, razor-sharp, and weirdly meta—it asks whether journalists can ever truly report “just the facts.”
**3.** ***Columbine*** **by Dave Cullen**
Extremely well-researched, calm in tone but thorough in detail. Cullen cuts through the myths and media spin to lay out what really happened, and how we got so much of it wrong. Doesn’t sensationalize but *still* chilling.
**4.** ***Say Nothing*** **by Patrick Radden Keefe**
Technically history, but it reads like a thriller. It’s about a murder during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and it’s got that same clean, gripping tone. Keefe’s storytelling is surgical and compelling without being bloated.
**5.** ***Hell’s Angels*** **by Hunter S. Thompson**
Before he went full gonzo, Thompson just… reported. This one’s gritty and precise, with just enough wild energy to keep it electric.
If you’re open to expanding into well-told investigative journalism, there are also some phenomenal longform pieces (like those in *The Atlantic* or *ProPublica*) that hit a similar note. Want recs in that lane too?
Any book by Harold Schechter.