Eight gripping novels based on actual murders

Midge Raymond is the author of the novels Floreana and My Last Continent, the short-story collection Forgetting English, and, with coauthor John Yunker, the mystery novel Devils Island. Her writing has appeared in TriQuarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, the Los Angeles Times magazine, Chicago Tribune, Poets & Writers, and many other publications. She has taught at Boston University, Boston’s Grub Street Writers, Seattle’s Hugo House, and San Diego Writers, Ink. Raymond lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she is co-founder of the boutique publisher Ashland Creek Press.

[The Page 69 Test: My Last Continent; Writers Read: Midge Raymond (June 2016); The Page 69 Test: Floreana; Q&A with Midge Raymond]

At Electric Lit the author tagged eight novels "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." One title on the list:

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.

Read about the other entries on the list at Electric Lit.

The Perfect Nanny is among Lisa Harding's six out-of-control characters in literary fiction and Elle Marr's five great diverse crime novels.

--Marshal Zeringue