20 Intriguing True Crime Books To Tease Your Curiosity

For fans of Japanese crime novels, stories about serial killers, food, and a lead journalist!

Manako Kajii is a gourmet cook who is accused of luring men with her meals and killing them. While in Tokyo Detention Center, after being tried and found guilty, she is refusing to speak, including to the press. That is, until Rika Machida changes tactics and writes to Manako asking for her “beef stew” recipe. Manako can’t help but answer back, and soon the women are talking about food. Rika has a plan to soften Manako into talking to her about the murders, but the more recipes of Manako’s she makes, the more she seems to be the one changing…

This is my current read, which I’m taking my time with because I’m really enjoying the dive into Japanese society, journalism, food, culture, and misogyny. It’s an “after the crime” novel that isn’t so much trying to solve if Manako did or didn’t really kill the men, but instead, Rika is getting to know the woman who society is fascinated by — because how can a happy fat woman who is deemed unattractive have gotten so many men to not only be with her but love her to the point of being gullible enough for her to have conned them out of their money and possibly lured them to their deaths? Manako is a “traditional” woman in many ways: she loves to feed a man and take care of him. She also hates feminism and margarine. And Rika, along with her friend who has left her job and is in fertility treatments, are finding their own views challenged through getting to know Manako — Rika especially, who had never cared for food beyond picking something up from a convenience store and is now finding herself making Manako’s recipes and being changed by them.

For fans of journalist-turned-PI leads!

Natalee (Lee) Ellerin is a journalist who, a handful of years ago, wrote a piece about a suspect in a girl’s murder. After the suspect died by suicide, he was exonerated from new evidence, essentially ruining Lee’s career. Lee turns to PI work and ends up with a case of a pregnant young woman found close to death who the police are labeling an attempted suicide, but the woman’s mother wants Lee to prove it wasn’t. Lee takes the case and ends up finding herself circling back to the case that ruined her career…