Nine true crime memoirs that explore why we're so obsessed with darkness

Rebecca Hannigan has an MA in Creative Writing Crime Fiction from UEA, graduating in 2023. She won the UEA/Little Brown Crime Prize for her dissertation. She has also been shortlisted for Virago/The Pool’s Best New Crime Writer.

Her first novel, Darkrooms, is a fictional work in which she explores the "feeling of betrayal and injustice" stemming from "a murder in [her] mother’s small Irish hometown" for which "no one was ever sentenced."

For People magazine Hannigan tagged nine "gripping true crime memoirs that explore why we're all so obsessed with darkness." One title on the list:

We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper

While at Harvard, Cooper learned about the decades-old unsolved murder of Jane Britton, a young archaeology student, and is haunted by it long after graduation. Cooper describes Britton as a big personality, a target for both envy and admiration, and finds a growing kinship that pushes her to investigate. Her obsession animates the exhaustive — and sometimes exhausting — investigation she undertakes, but ultimately leaves the reader wondering what Cooper’s life will look like when the case is finally solved.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue