I’ve read Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky and felt the part leading to the murder was gripping. It could have been how many of us would have done something that morally not right. But is that really how criminals think and execute? Do you have any book recommendations on how criminals think and execute crime?
by Shyam_Kumar_m
14 Comments
Interested in valuable recommendations you might get!
This isn’t the answer you are looking for so sorry to go the obvious fiction route but Crime & Punishment by Dostoyevski is a canon read if you are interested in the topic and hadn’t had the pleasure yet 🙂
The early novels of Jean Genet – try *The Thief’s Journal* for starters.
Pimp by iceberg slim
If I did it by O.J. Simpson
Killing Rage by Eamon Collins about his time in the IRA. Judas Pig by Horace Silver, the pseudonym of a London gangster, is absolutely brutal.
Less dramatic and more focused on the social drivers of crime, but {{The Corner by David Simon}} does a fantastic job of showing the conditions, experiences, mindset, etc of people who often get caught in these cycles. The author spent a year covering ordinary people in west Baltimore to write this book. A lot of the themes and characters pretty directly inspired his later work with The Wire.
You can’t win by jack black
**Jackrabbit Parole – Stephen Reid**
Reid was a notorious Canadian bank robber and member of the infamous Stopwatch Gang. They would hit banks hard and strictly time themselves with a stopwatch. They kept the robberies to under 2 minutes. Between 1974 and 1980 they robbed over 140 banks and stole over $15 million. He spent over 20 years in various prisons in the US and Canada. He turned his life around and married poet Susan Musgrave. He died in 2018.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Reid_(writer)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stopwatch_Gang
**Mr. Nice – Howard Marks**
Marks was an international drug (cannabis) smuggler. He started small but rose to be one of the the world’s most prolific drug smugglers. Ultimately sentenced to life in prison, he was released after seven years and allowed to return to the UK. His autobiography was turned into a film of the same name. He died in 2016.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Marks
Any of the Harlem Detectives series by Chester Himes. Went to jail in 1928 for armed robbery, where he wrote stories and sent them out to be published. Did 7.5 years of a 20-25 year sentence before being released on parole.
He faced immense racial prejudice both personal and systemic throughout his life which led him to emigrate to Europe where he was recognized for his literary abilities and welcomed into literary circles.
For your question, I would recommend the Harlem Detectives series. The first largely follows various criminals and patsies in a Harlem noir story, while the rest do that but are more focused on the eponymous detectives.
Edit: I should say that I don’t want to limit Himes by calling him a “criminal” but the fact is that he committed and did time for a crime
Anything from Edward Bunker as he was an actual criminal that started writing when in prison.
Thanks for asking this. I too am interested
*Catch Me If You Can* by Frank Abignale, although he is very likely an unreliable narrator, inflating his own exploits. It’s entertaining, even so.
You Can’t Win by Jack Black (not the one you’re thinking of). It’s a pretty good novel, gives real life to thievery and crime and homelessness during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Pretty fascinating.
not exactly what you’re looking for idt, but ‘Tweak’ by nic sheff