A whodunnit recovery: true crime podcasts and books for when you're sick.

If you're like me, who weirdly finds solace in true crime stories in times of pain or boredom, this list is for you.

Aug 21, 2023

Hi friends,

I took the majority of July off to recover from an eye surgery. When I had Covid last year and was falling in and out of sleep, I binged The Dropout and Dirty John and found comfort in other people’s conflicts and drama during times of fatigue. This time, prepared with recommendations from both the internet and friends and colleagues, I was absorbed in many seasons of true crime podcasts and books that distracted me from the discomfort and blurry vision from the antibiotic ointment. Somehow, my recovery time passed more quickly and interestingly that way.

If you’re like me, who weirdly finds solace in true crime stories in times of discomfort, pain, or boredom, this list is for you.

The Podcasts

Suspect

Suspect rose to the top of my list as the overall winner of my recovery binge-listening adventure. All three seasons are high-quality investigative journalism work, thoughtfully-produced, and well-edited.

Season 1

In 2008, Aparna Jinada, an Indian immigrant and recent college graduate, was brutally murdered after a Halloween costume party she co-hosted in an apartment complex in the Seattle area. It’s a classic whodunnit with people dressed in costumes. The producer interviewed the party attendees and tried to repaint a picture of what happened that night with police forensic evidence, including DNA. The story is gripping and heartbreaking, with proper respect paid to the victim and the victim’s family, unlike many true crime shows out there. The show gained my trust and respect from this season on.

Season 2 - Vanished in the Snow

The second season looked into the disappearance and murder case of a twelve-year-old girl named Jonelle Matthews in the 1980s. The host interviewed people who knew the Matthews and several people who were involved with the suspects also appeared on the show. As the investigation zeroed in on one suspect, the story took an unexpected turn. Season 2 is my favorite season of Suspect overall.

Season 3 - Five Shots in the Dark

Leon Benson spent half of his life in prison, 25 years, for a crime he did not commit. Matthew Shaer, the host of Season 1 Suspect, co-produced the show with Laza Bazelon, a professor of law and the director of the Criminal Juvenile Justice and Racial Justice Clinical Programs at the University of San Francisco who represented Benson in his wrongful conviction case. They took a deep dive into a flawed criminal justice system that led to Benson’s wrongful conviction in 1998 and the shaky eyewitness recollections that eventually were used to build a case against Benson. Because I used to work at the University and had heard about the Wrongful Conviction Clinic and the eventual release of Benson while I was there, this season feels much closer to me.

The Retrievals

Dozens of women who underwent fertility treatment at a Yale clinic experienced extreme pain during and days after the egg retrieval process. No one believed them at first, not even the nurses or the doctors at the clinic until something shocking was uncovered. The podcast explores what happened there and discusses the larger issue that women’s pains have long been dismissed, minimized, and undertreated by medical professionals. Produced by the New York Times and the Serial Production, the narrative of the Retrievals brings back that “familiar feel” of the Serial Production (e.g. the Coldest Case in Laramie).

Scamanda

A woman who faked her cancer for years had tricked her community into donating thousands of dollars. She also kept an online blog documenting her “cancer journey” to gain sympathy from the online community. This fraudster story has eight episodes in total, but I only made it to episode six while falling in and out of sleep. The show uses over-dramatized background music and repeats certain details way too many times to make each episode longer. Still, I’d recommend starting with episode 1 and seeing how many episodes you can go through before you have to stop.

Other Just Okay Podcasts

Betrayal: There are two seasons in total, but both of them are a tad long to my liking. If you like family dramas and slower narratives, maybe you will like the show.

The King Road Killings reports on the gruesome murder of four University of Idaho students in their off-campus house less than a year ago. If you’re curious about the ins and outs of the case, it’s a good show to check out as a reliable and digestible news source. However, the podcast itself doesn’t tell you anything more than what you can already read on the news. If you want to follow the analysis of the upcoming trial, you can subscribe to the podcast feed to get updates.

The Books

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (2003) by Jon Krakauer

Right before my surgery, I had asked for audiobook and podcast recommendations from my coworkers and this book was on the list. The 14-hour audiobook weaves together two stories. One begins with the brutal murder of Brenda Lafferty and her baby daughter by two brothers who subscribed to fundamentalist Mormonism beliefs and claimed to follow God's will. The second story focuses on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, detailing its origins and development. Although it’s a long audiobook for me to digest as Krakauer mentions countless names and stories while I was half awake, I was still shaken to the core when I finally finished listening. As I am writing this piece, I learned that it’s now a Hulu show, starring Andrew Garfield and Daisy Edgar-Jones. If you have watched it, let me know your thoughts in the comments.

What Lies in the Woods (2023) by Kate Alice Marshall

I finished this book on the final days of my sick leave at the beautiful Golden Gate Park and was feeling grateful for the ability to read again.

Unique and fresh in its narrative, this crime thriller tells the story of one surviving victim’s own quest to uncover the truth of her attack when she was a teenager, deep in the woods of a Pacific Northwest small town with two of her best friends. As her investigation unfolds, she is forced to confront her own childhood recollection and the stories she’s been told by others. There are many surprising plot twists throughout the book that makes it impossible put it down, and what reveals at the end is bone-chillingly dark. If you need a thrilling psychological read for distraction, this is your book.