True-Crime Canon: 25 best podcasts, documentaries, and books.

True-crime fandom may be booming, but that doesn’t mean that our cultural fascination with evil and transgression is new. Originally published in four parts for the New Yorker, Capote’s tale of a grisly murder on a Kansas farm offered exquisite, meditative insight into the minds of killers and the community upended by their violence—a far cry from “If it bleeds, it leads.” Capote called the book, an instant sensation, a “nonfiction novel”; now you’re likely to find it shelved in creative nonfiction, a genre that Capote arguably created. 🗞️ Magazine feature “Orchid Fever” Written by Susan Orlean You probably remember that Charlie Kaufman’s movie Adaptation was adapted, sort of, from Orlean’s book The Orchid Thief. 🗞️ Two magazine features “Trial by Fire” and “Blood Will Tell” Written by David Grann and Pamela Colloff Each of these stunning feats of reporting debunks a type of expert testimony that has put innocent people in prison for crimes they did not commit; we’re pairing them because together they show the power of true crime to affect the nuts and bolts of the criminal justice system. 🎧 Podcast season You Must Remember This: Charles Manson’s Hollywood Created by Karina Longworth Perhaps no crime has spawned more true-crime content than the hideous acts of Charles Manson and his “family.” But this season of You Must Remember This, Longworth’s long-running podcast exploring the less-told stories of 20th-century Hollywood, is the best thing out there on the subject.