The Best True Crime Stories of the Year 2025

Bestselling author Douglas Preston selects the best true crime writing from the past year, aided by series editor Peter Crooks, to produce an eclectic collection of intriguing, mysterious, and exciting true tales.

This inaugural edition of what will be a yearly collection offers a fascinating variety of essays and crime reporting, taken from regional, national, and international publications. The stories range from reports of homicide at a Toronto massage parlor to blackmail and murder-for-hire in Austin, Texas, to an unusual murder weapon in rural Minnesota. Other stories examine controversial rehabilitation techniques for sexual criminals and explore the phenomenon of victims’ relatives appearing as guests at true crime conventions.

A must-read for anyone interested in true crime, The Best True Crime Stories of the Year 2025 takes the pulse of this increasingly popular genre.

This compilation of true crime stories recognizes topics beyond the expected. A recommended title that will surely be popular with a vast audience.”
—Library Journal

Douglas Preston has published thirty-six books of both nonfiction and fiction, of which twenty-nine have been New York Times bestsellers. He is the co-author, with Lincoln Child, of the Pendergast series of thrillers. He writes about archaeology and anthropology for the New Yorker Magazine, and he worked as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University. He currently serves as President of the Authors Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest association of authors and journalists.

Peter Crooks is the editor of Crime Ink. Previous to joining Penzler Publishers, he spent more than two decades as an editor and writer at Diablo magazine in the San Francisco Bay Area. His book, The Setup: A True Story of Dirty Cops, Soccer Moms, and Reality TV exposed a spectacular police corruption scandal, and the story has been featured on This American Life, 48 Hours Mystery, and in an upcoming documentary from RAW TV.