8 Gripping Novels Based on Real Murders

When I traveled to the Galápagos Islands, I went for the wildlife—specifically, for the penguins. At the time, the only human I’d associated with the islands was Charles Darwin. Then I learned about “The Galápagos Affair”—the bizarre human history of Floreana Island that gave new meaning to phrase survival of the fittest.

What happened was this: In 1929, two German lovers left their spouses in Berlin and started a new life on Floreana. They were joined on the island three years later by the Wittmers, another German couple, and their teenage child. The two families lived independently and harmoniously—until the arrival soon thereafter of a woman calling herself the Baroness, along with her two German lovers. 

Due to the Baroness’s mercenary habits, chaos ensued, and by 1934 the Baroness and one of her lovers had disappeared, and two of the German men were dead. To this day, the Baroness and her lover have never been seen again—and the other two deaths remain shrouded in mystery. 

I’d never written a novel inspired by historical events, but I felt this mystery needed to be solved—and the only way to do this would be through a work of fiction. As I wrote Floreana, I found it both challenging and encouraging to have very little source material, with little reliable evidence and no living humans from that time period to shed light on what happened. This gave me the freedom to imagine what might have happened and to create my own version of events, based on what I learned about the settlers and their lives in the Galápagos.

Likewise, the novels below are based on real murders, and, as fiction allows us to do, the books go beyond the tragic events to explore issues that often don’t make it into the news headlines: deeper insights into the lives of the victims, the survivors, and even the perpetrators. Whether historical or contemporary, these novels offer glimpses into true crimes by going beyond the incidents themselves and into the imaginations of their authors. 

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

This novel, which recalls Ted Bundy’s horrific murders without ever naming him, opens with the killings at a Florida sorority house in 1978 and is told from the points of view of a surviving sorority president and the friend of a victim from the other side of the country. As the sorority president connects with the Seattle victim’s friend, the two seek answers and justice. Readers familiar with Bundy’s infamy will appreciate that this chilling story focuses on the victims and survivors, the bright young women who persevere—not on the unnamed “Defendant,” as he is called in the novel. 

The Perfect Nanny by Leïla Slimani, translated by Sam Taylor

First published in France as Chanson douce, Moroccan-born French author Leïla Slimani’s novel is both haunting and harrowing. Set in Paris, the novel evokes the real-life case of the New York Krim family, whose children were murdered by their nanny, who afterward attempted suicide. Translated from the French by Sam Taylor, the stark, austere prose makes Slimani’s novel all the more gripping—and unsettling—from the very first page.

The Murderess by Laurie Notaro

Laurie Notaro’s novel about Winnie Ruth Judd, known as “the Trunk Murderess,” opens on Judd trying to retrieve her oozing trunks from LA’s Union Station, where she abandons them as station porters discover they contain human remains. With empathy, meticulously researched context, and exquisite detail, Notaro’s novel reveals how Judd—a slight twenty-six-year-old who was a minister’s daughter and a doctor’s wife—reached the point at which she murdered her two closest friends.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Lionel Shriver’s epistolary novel is about a marriage, a family, a troubled child—and the horrific, Columbine-like murders he commits at his school. Winner of the 2005 Orange Prize, the novel takes a daringly close look at parenthood and family, with insight into the world of a mother reviled for her role in the tragedy. In her signature unflinching style, Shriver has created a compelling and wholly unique novel; while the crime that inspired the book may be familiar, the novel’s insights and twists are truly surprising.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

In this historical novel, Margaret Atwood resurrects a crime that took place in 1843—the murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery, by two other employees, Grace Marks and James McDermott. After the murders, McDermott was hanged, and Marks was sentenced to life in prison. Atwood’s novel picks up here; in Alias Grace, Grace is released from prison to work in the prison governor’s home, and psychiatrist Simon Jordan begins meeting with her in an attempt to understand who she is, what led to the murders, and what her role in the crime really was. 

The Girls by Emma Cline

Set in the 1960s in Marin County, The Girls follows Evie Boyd as she enters a Charles Manson–like cult of (mostly) young women who are as lost as she is. Told from the perspective of an older, wiser Evie looking back on the summer when she was fourteen, The Girls reveals the angst and isolation that leads her into the dark and troubling world of sex, drugs and, eventually, murder. With strong parallels to the Sharon Tate murders, this novel is about secrets, family, and coming to terms with one’s past. 

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

In Cold Blood is among the most well-known “nonfiction novels,” and while this work of literary journalism tells a true story, its publication in 1966 makes it among the first of its kind in the genre. The book portrays the 1959 murders of Herb, Bonnie, Nancy, and Kenyon Clutter at their farm in Holcomb, Kansas, by recent parolees Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, with all the tension, details, and context of a novel, and the book is both a murder mystery and courtroom drama.  

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie 

Belgian detective Hercule Poirot leads this cast of international characters who are not what they seem. Without revealing too much for (the few) readers who may not be familiar with this novel, the killer’s motive was inspired by the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s son in 1932. Christie included details of the real-life case, in which the Lindberghs’ child was kidnapped for ransom but murdered despite the family having paid—as well as details from her own journeys on the Orient Express, including one on which the train was delayed by weather—and the result is a classic, suspenseful locked-room mystery. 

The post 8 Gripping Novels Based on Real Murders appeared first on Electric Literature.