Top True Crime: Edgar Awards for Best Fact Crime
Annotation:2012 winner. Who murdered 20th president James A. Garfield? The man who shot him, Charles J. Guiteau, or the doctors who treated him?
Annotation:2012 nominee. The story of the 2008 hunt for the most wanted woman in America, who had escaped from the correctional facility where she was serving a sentence for multiple murders.
Annotation:2012 nominee. "In 2008, Clark Rockefeller, of the wealthy Rockefeller family, was arrested for kidnapping his daughter. But this criminal act was quickly overshadowed by some more startling revelations: Clark Rockefeller doesn't exist..." - Booklist
Annotation:2012 nominee. The discovery of a dismembered corpse and the subsequent police investigation are fodder for the New York tabloids in the summer of 1897.
Annotation:2012 nominee. "Through the stories of three desperate men--an innocent man wrongly accused of murder, a corrupt cop, and a militant Black Panther--T. J. English tells the story of race, violence, and urban chaos in 1960s New York City." - publisher's blurb
Annotation:2011 winner. "A riveting but sordid tale of the University of Washington's 2000 football squad, which included at least 24 players arrested or charged with crimes during their years at the university, crimes for which they did little or no time." - Booklist
Annotation:2011 nominee. "An iconic criminal case—a black man sentenced to death for raping a white woman in Mississippi in 1945—exposes the roiling tensions of the early civil rights era in this provocative study." - Publishers Weekly
Annotation:2011 nominee. "The case of missing congressional intern Chandra Levy [that] gripped the nation during spring 2001." - Library Journal
Annotation:2011 nominee. "The counterpoint between two driven men—one by a quest for justice, the other by an atavistic hatred—propels this engrossing study of the King assassination." - Publishers Weekly
Annotation:2011 nominee. "Fascinating dual account of the birth of forensic science and the whimsical adventures of a carefree serial killer in pastoral 1890s France." - Library Journal
Annotation:2010 winner. "Cullen, acclaimed expert on [the 1999 shooting at ] Columbine [High School], offers a penetrating look at the motivation and intent of the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold." - Booklist
Annotation:2010 nominee. "The true story of an African American plainclothes police officer, Michael Cox, who was brutally beaten by his fellow officers in a case of mistaken identity." - Library Journal
Annotation:2010 nominee. This new look at the infamous outlaws examines the reality of their exploits as well as their hold on the popular imagination.
Annotation:2010 nominee. "A decade-long art scam [begining in 1986] that sullied the integrity of museum archives and experts alike is elegantly recounted." - Publishers Weekly
Annotation:2010 nominee. An investigation of the August 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum in Paris.
Annotation:2009 winner. "The 'crime of the century' was the October 1, 1910, explosion in the offices of the Los Angeles Times, intended as an attack on 100 cities, that led to serious conversation about the limits of liberty." - Library Journal
Annotation:2009 nominee. "In 1924, Nathan Leopold, 19, and Richard Loeb, 18, both intellectually precocious scions of wealthy Jewish Chicago families, kidnapped and brutally murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks in an attempt to commit the 'perfect' crime." - Publishers Weekly
Annotation:2008 winner. Bugliosi, a former prosecutor, argues against the idea of a conspiracy behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy in this detailed legal study.
Annotation:2007 winner. An hour-by-hour account of the twelve day hunt for John Wilkes Booth following Lincoln's assassination.
Annotation:2006 winner. A lively account of the 1994 theft and recovery of one of the world's most famous paintings, The Scream by Edvard Munch.
Annotation:2005 winner. A suspect is convicted for the 1975 murder of 15-year-old Martha Moxley more than 20 years after the crime.
Annotation:2004 winner. This perennially popular account of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair tells two parallel tales, the story of the fair itself and the man who built it and the story of the serial killer who hid behind it.
Annotation:2003 winner. "A tale of two men a respected fire chief and a prolific arsonist who turned out to be one and the same." - Library Journal
Annotation:2001 winner. "This full-bodied true-crime saga by two Boston Globe reporters is a cautionary tale about FBI corruption and the abuse of power." - Publishers Weekly
Annotation:2000 winner. "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Stewart...elevates the story of a peripatetic doctor who leaves behind a trail of dead patients beyond the true-crime genre." - Library Journal
Annotation:1992 winner. Simon spent a year with the Baltimore Police Department's Homicide unit to research this book, which became the basis for the award-winning television program "Homicide: Fife on the Street"
Annotation:1986 winner. WhenTony Baekeland, great-grandson of the man who made millions by inventing the first commercially successful plastic, stabbed his mother to death in 1972, it was the final chapter in a family saga with plot twists worthy of ''Dynasty'' - or perhaps Tennessee Williams." - New York Times
Annotation:1980 winner. The story of two high school buddies who were tried and convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. The book was the basis for the 1985 film of the same name.
Annotation:1975 winner. The story of the Manson Family murders told by the DA who prosecuted the case.
Annotation:1966 winner. This tale of a brutal multiple murder committed on a Kansas farm in 1959 is considered a groundbreaking work in the true crime genre.
Annotation:1965 winner. Tells the story behind the landmark case, Gideon v. Wainwright, in which the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that criminal defendants unable to afford their own attorneys must be provided legal counsel at trial.
Annotation:Search for all Best Fact Crime winners and nominees from 1948 - present.
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The Edgar Allen Poe Awards, known as the "Edgars," are presented by the Mystery Writers of America to honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film, and theater. The award for Best Fact Crime has been presented since 1948. Murder, assassination, robbery, fraud, extortion, conspiracy and other true crimes are recounted in the winning and nominated titles listed here.
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