Nonfiction Books That Shed Light on Crime in the Real World
Nonfiction can sometimes be dry, but true crime books rarely are. If you’re looking for some compelling books—the kind that keeps you wanting to turn pages, not the kind that will put you to sleep—nonfiction crime books are a great choice. These five crime books provide fascinating windows into history, politics, and current events, from the Rwandan genocide and the illegal gold trade to Chinese government surveillance and the effects of crime on small-town Appalachia. They’re a blend of investigative journalism, memoir, biography, history, and cultural analysis. The best true crime stories, and the best history books, are not only engaging and hard to put down, but teach us something new about the world we live in—and how to go on living in. These five books do exactly that.
Gold smuggling may seem like something out of the past, bringing to mind classic Westerns and infamous bank robbers. But, as the authors of Dirty Gold make abundantly clear, it's actually a modern problem. Written by the group of Miami Herald reporters who broke the story, this book exposes the illegal gold trade and the men who grew rich on it. In 2017, the FBI arrested three Miami businessmen for illegal metals trading—mostly Peruvian gold smuggled from illegal mines. Their arrest was just the tip of the iceberg, and their prosecution soon exposed a multi-million dollar illegal industry. Dirty Gold traces the interconnected stories of the drug dealers, miners, businessmen, and many others caught up in this criminal underworld. The authors present a comprehensive and often disturbing picture of the industry, from the environmental degradation and humans rights violations to the implications for the stock market. You'll never look at gold the same way again.
Related: The Best Books and Movies About The Illegal Mining and The Drug Trade
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