True Crime Books We’re Looking Forward to This Year

In Spyfail, James Bamford, the bestselling author of The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets, uncovers the truth behind the foreign powers that have spied on the United States. These foreign countries have the power to conduct large-scale espionage within the United States, and the FBI and other agencies do not always have the power to stop it. Spyfail gives readers access to previously secret documents that demonstrate the shocking truth about how politics, special interests, and corruption allow these foreign intrusions to continue.

In Ghosts of the Orphanage, Christine Kenneally reveals the shocking secret history of twentieth-century orphanages. For much of the twentieth century, many horrible events, including psychological abuse, physical abuse, and even death, took place inside orphanages. Kenneally focuses the story on one such orphanage, St. Joseph’s, a Catholic orphanage in Vermont. But what she uncovers there shines a light on a much larger systemic issue.

Andrea Lankford is an investigator for the National Park Service's law enforcement team and has led criminal investigations across some of the most beautiful places in America, including Yosemite, Zion, and the Grand Canyon. In Trail of the Lost, Lankford takes readers on a true crime adventure through these landscapes, focusing on one crime she just can’t forget. On the Pacific Crest Trail, three young men vanished without a trace.