BVBook Verdict

If you liked

Books like Under the Banner of Heaven

Loved Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer? Here are 10 books with a similar appeal — drawn mostly from true crime, ranked by how confidently we'd recommend them next.

10 books · ranked

  1. 1

    Killers of the Flower Moon

    David Grann · 2017 · True Crime

    The murders of wealthy Osage people and the birth of the FBI; a riveting, important investigation.

  2. 2

    In Cold Blood

    Truman Capote · 1966 · True Crime

    A Kansas farm-family murder reconstructed in novelistic detail; the book that created the true-crime genre.

  3. 3

    Transnational Organised Crime

    Adam Edwards · 2003 · True Crime

    The origins & perceptions of transnational organised crime are discussed in this book. The authors contend that the ways in which such crime is constructed as an 'external' threat obscures the reality

  4. 4

    Cape May Court House

    Lawrence Schiller · 2002 · True Crime

    No one in Cape May Court House, New Jersey, was surprised when Eric Thomas, a popular young doctor, sued Ford Motor Company for the wrongful death of his pregnant wife, Tracy. The accident they were i

  5. 5

    Cosa Nostra

    John Dickie · 2004 · True Crime

    From the mafia's origins in the 1860s to its current tense relationship with the Berlusconi government, this is a vivid and gripping history of the Sicilian Mafia's inner sanctum.

  6. 6

    Black mass

    Dick Lehr · 2001 · True Crime

    John Connolly and James "Whitey" Bulger grew up together on the tough streets of South Boston. Decades later in the mid-1970s, they met again. By then, Connolly was a major figure in the FBI's Boston

  7. 7

    Syndromes of Corruption

    Michael Johnston · 2005 · True Crime

    A sophisticated analysis of four main types of corruption in developed and developing countries.

  8. 8

    The Best American Crime Writing 2005

    Thomas H. Cook · 2005 · True Crime

    The 2005 edition of The Best American Crime Writing offers the year's most shocking, compelling, and gripping writing about real-life crime, including Peter Landesman's article about female sex slaves

  9. 9

    The Innocent Man

    John Grisham · 2006 · True Crime

    Murder and injustice in a small townJohn Grisham's first work of non-fiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller yet. In the major league

  10. 10

    Beyond the Body Farm

    William M. Bass · 2007 · True Crime

    There is no scientist in the world like Dr. Bill Bass. A pioneer in forensic anthropology, Bass created the world's first laboratory dedicated to the study of human decomposition—three acres of land o

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