A Cosy Night In With True Crime

It looks like the nice weather is behind us and the dark night nights are closing in, but don't worry we've got those cosy nights in covered.

You can't go wrong with our recommendation, all you need is the heating turned up and some hot coco.

The Netflix Binge

This is becoming a classic night or weekend in for the True Crime fan, Netflix just keep serving up true crime entertainment and we love it. Here are some of our favorites:

Evil Genius

The truth behind an extraordinary criminal case, known as the “pizza bomber heist,” is brought to light in the four-part Netflix original documentary series Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist. In 2003 in Erie, Pennsylvania, a robbery gone wrong and a terrifying public murder capture the nation’s attention, and a bizarre collection of Midwestern hoarders, outcasts, and lawbreakers play cat-and-mouse with the FBI. Eventually, a middle-aged mastermind named Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong — once a town beauty, now a woman grappling with mental illness — is arrested. But 15 years later, Evil Genius proves there’s more to the conspiracy and murders than was ever thought.

Making A Murderer

Filmed over a 10-year period, Making a Murderer is an unprecedented real-life thriller about a DNA exoneree who, while in the midst of exposing corruption in local law enforcement, finds himself the prime suspect in a grisly new crime. Set in America's heartland, the series takes viewers inside a high-stakes criminal case where reputation is everything and things are never as they appear.

The Legend Of Cocaine Island

Rodney Hyden is an American dreamer: a small business owner and family man from Central Florida. But after he’s wiped out by the Great Recession, Rodney hears a story that could be his ticket out of his mounting debt: a tale of a map, an island and buried treasure. Fueled by a combination of economic desperation and blissful ignorance, Rodney hatches a plan to retrieve a possibly mythical $2 million stash of cocaine from its reported Caribbean hiding place. With the help of a colorful group of misfits - and without prior drug-running experience - Rodney sets out in pursuit of his very own American dream, with surprising results.

Directed by Theo Love, The Legend of Cocaine Island premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival under the titleWhite Tide: The Legend of Culebra. A Sidestilt Production in Association with Dreamco Pictures.

The Staircase

The Staircase is the compelling story of Michael Peterson, a crime novelist accused of killing his wife Kathleen after she is found dead at the bottom of a staircase in their home, and the 16-year judicial battle that followed. The brand new episodes of this true crime phenomenon will air alongside the original series. Produced by Matthieu Belghiti and produced and directed by Academy-award winner Jean-Xavier de Lestrade.

Curl Up With A Good Book

Sometimes you can’t beat sitting in a comfy spot with a book, and when it comes to true crime books we are spoilt for choice, here are a few that we love:

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.

I’ll Be Gone In The Dark by Michelle McNamara

The masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer - the serial rapist turned murderer who terrorised California for over a decade - from the late Michelle McNamara.

I'll Be Gone in the Dark offers a unique snapshot of suburban West Coast America in the 1980s, and a chilling account of the wreckage left behind by a criminal mastermind. It is also a portrait of one woman's obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth, three decades later, in spite of the personal cost.

Updated with material which takes in the extraordinary events that followed its initial publication, Michelle McNamara's first and last book is a contemporary classic - humane, haunting and heroic.

Chase Darkness With Me by Billy Jensen

This one is only out on Audiobook at the moment but we have it on good authority that the physical copy won’t be long.

Have you ever wanted to solve a murder? Gather the clues the police overlooked. Put together the pieces. Identify the suspect.

Journalist Billy Jensen spent 15 years investigating unsolved murders, fighting for the families of victims. Every story he wrote had one thing in common - it didn't have an ending. The killer was still out there.

But after the sudden death of a friend, crime writer Michelle McNamara, Billy became fed up. Following a dark night, he came up with a plan. A plan to investigate past the point when the cops have given up. A plan to solve the murders himself.

In Chase Darkness with Me, you'll ride shotgun as Billy identifies the Halloween Mask Murderer, finds a missing girl in the California Redwoods, and investigates the only other murder in New York City on 9/11. You'll hear intimate details of the hunts for two of the most terrifying serial killers in history: his friend Michelle's pursuit of the Golden State Killer which is chronicled in I'll Be Gone In The Dark which Billy helped finish after Michelle's passing, and his own quest to find the murderer of the Allenstown 4 family.

Gripping, complex, unforgettable, Chase Darkness with Me is an examination of the evil forces that walk among us, illustrating a novel way to catch those killers, and a true crime narrative unlike any you've listened to before.