Unspeakable Acts

True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession

By: Sarah Weinman

Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Graham Halstead

A brilliant anthology of modern true-crime writing that illustrates the appeal of this powerful and popular genre, edited and curated by Sarah Weinman, the award-winning author of The Real Lolita

The appeal of true-crime stories has never been higher. With podcasts like My Favorite Murder and In the Dark, bestsellers like I’ll Be Gone in the Dark and Furious Hours, and TV hits like American Crime Story and Wild Wild Country, the cultural appetite for stories of real people doing terrible things is insatiable.

Acclaimed author ofThe Real Lolita and editor of Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s (Library of America) and Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives (Penguin), Sarah Weinman brings together an exemplary collection of recent true crime tales. She culls together some of the most refreshing and exciting contemporary journalists and chroniclers of crime working today. Michelle Dean’s “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick” went viral when it first published and is the basis for the TV showThe Act and Pamela Colloff’s “The Reckoning,” is the gold standard for forensic journalism. There are 13 pieces in all and as a collection, they showcase writing about true crime across the broadest possible spectrum, while also reflecting what makes crime stories so transfixing and irresistible to the modern reader.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Good small stories but no larger viewpoint

This book is filled with several good & then average stories. The story telling is solid but the overall book has no main or connected message. I feel like I didn’t learn anything new or see a hidden underlying theme between these individual or group of stories. It wasn’t entertaining enough to be worth reading if I didn’t learn anything. I felt engaged at the start, dulled at the middle, and disappointed at the end.