I Feel the Need: 9 Compelling True Crime Reads About Obsessions

Someone can love books too much? It’s not possible, you say! But when it leads to a life of crime, it is true. John Charles Gilkey felt such a need to own rare books, he became one of the most prolific book burglars in the country. It took an equally driven detective to hunt him down and put an end to (sorry not sorry) that chapter in his life.

Becky Cooper was a student at Harvard when she heard a story that shocked her. Decades earlier, a woman student had been murdered, and while the case was never solved, it was said that the killer was a professor still teaching at the school to that day. Cooper couldn’t believe it — how could a killer still be walking around among students? Why hadn’t he been arrested? Her interest in the murder turned into a drive for answers that took over her life for ten years, leading her down dark paths of sexism, jealousy, and violence in Harvard’s Anthropology Department.

Art thefts have been happening for almost as long as people have been making art. Big jobs like the (still unsolved) Gardner Museum heist and the (temporary) loss of the Mona Lisa captivated the world. But there was one man who didn’t always make headlines but did make off with over 300 works of art across Europe over an eight-year span. Stéphane Breitwieser is considered the world’s most prolific art thief — and the most successful — until his need to keep stealing, despite the writing on the wall, led to his capture.

Like many of the books on this list, this is a story about not only the criminal but the person determined to catch them. If there is something that exists, anything, you can bet there is someone in the world who has an interest in whatever it is. In this case, it was rare birds whose eggs were being stolen, smuggled, and sold for millions. Detective Andy McWilliam of the United Kingdom’s National Wildlife Crime Unit pursued a thief around the globe (like a hawk) to put a stop to his thieving.

And speaking of birds, this weird true crime tale involves their feathers. Kirk Johnson was fly fishing when he was told a wild story by his guide. There was an American orchestral musician on tour in England who broke into a natural history museum to steal hundreds of old bird skins. Why? To use the feathers to make old-fashioned Victorian ties for fly fishing, which was his obsession. That was all the guide knew about the theft. But Johnson became so captivated by this tale and determined to find out what happened to the musician and the skins he stole that he wound up investigating it himself.

One of journalist Susan Orlean’s earliest books recounts her experience traveling to Florida to meet with an unusual criminal. John Laroche was an orchid thief, determined to find, steal, and clone the rare ghost orchid from the Florida swamps. Which, like hunting endangered animals, was illegal. He took Orlean on a wild ride through the criminal underworld of flower collecting, the untamed nature of the flower’s natural habitat, and his own life. (This was later very loosely adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep and Nicholas Cage called Adaptation.)

This is the only memoir on the list. In her own words, Doris Payne describes her decades as a jewel thief. Starting when she was young, Payne was determined to rise out of her situation as a poor Black girl during the Depression. Her life of crime started when she was kicked out of a jewelry store by a racist owner, and she discovered she had a knack for boosting gems. Over six decades, she stole from all over the world, fencing the jewels for profit and even selling some to Hollywood celebrities. Even more amazing, Payne was suspected or arrested multiple times in her career and had more than one prison break to her name. She was caught stealing as recently as 2015 when she was 84!

Like falcon eggs, diamonds, orchids, and artwork, possessing a dinosaur bone is something many collectors would like to do despite the legality of owning one. In this case, it was a whole skeleton, stolen from Mongolia by a fossil hunter from Florida. He made his living finding bones and selling them to museums, rich people, and celebrities, who would pay top dollar. But his brazen theft of a whole skeleton and the ensuing custody battle is what finally brought his enterprise crashing to the ground.

And last, but not least, what is considered a recent classic of true crime. In the 18th century, Professor James Murray, a lexicographer, began his fervent dream of documenting every word in English and their definitions. This incredible lofty goal was to become the OED — the Oxford English Dictionary. One of the OED’s most passionate contributors was a man named Dr. W. C. Minor, who submitted over one thousand entries by mail. Murray knew that Minor was almost as invested in seeing the book completed as he was. But what Murray didn’t know about his helpful pen pal was that Minor was also a convicted murderer being held at a facility for the criminally insane.