As Making a Murderer returns, is the obsession with true crime turning nasty?

We can’t get enough of cold-case shows such as Serial, especially when they lead to retrials. But while the genre has gone from lurid gore to upmarket investigations, an exploitative undertow remains

In brief: Murder by the Book; The Hoarder; Tropic of Violence – review

A Victorian murder suggests life imitating art, a carer uncovers dark secrets in a client’s squalor and there’s political trouble in paradise

The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman review – the kidnapping of Sally Horner

Nabokov denied that his novel was inspired by the famous 1948 case, but this literary detective work reveals many parallels

‘I started having nightmares’: behind the scenes of Trace, the hit true-crime podcast

While her podcast on the unsolved murder of Australian mother Maria James became an international hit, journalist Rachael Brown was relentlessly chasing new leads. She shares what happened next

Revenge, justice and compassion: what you should read in July

Authors Bri Lee, Kate Rossmanith and Kate Wild examine these themes in new releases and talk about what they’re reading next

The best recent crime novels – review roundup

This Is What Happened by Mick Herron, The Blood Road by Stuart MacBride, The Quaker by Liam McIlvanney, The Poison Bed by EC Fremantle and A Shot in the Dark by Lynne Truss

The Murderer of Warren Street review – magnetic revolutionary or serial killer?

Emmanuel Barthélemy manned the barricades in mid-19th century Paris and was hanged for murder in London. But how best to tell his story?

The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia review – a kleptocracy in the making

Mark Galeotti’s timely account of the Russian underworld charts its rise from Soviet-era gangsters to Kremlin collaborators under Putin

Elisabeth’s Lists by Lulah Ellender review – a haunting family history

Lists from a lost world help the author put together a vivid study of the grandmother she never knew

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara review – in search of a serial killer

A fanatical quest to identify California’s 1970s Golden State Killer is told in gripping, grisly detail

The Good Mothers review – women challenge the mafia

A gripping account by Alex Perry of the efforts of three women to escape the clutches of Calabrian organised crime families

The Minister and the Murderer by Stuart Kelly – a killer turns to God

Stuart Kelly’s hybrid of real-life crime, memoir and the Scottish church is full of insights but suffers from the weight of its learning

Tim Rogers, Sofie Laguna, Anna Broinowksi and others on what they’re reading in September

Authors including Graham Archer, Chris Womersley and Claire G Coleman talk about their new books out this month – and the ones they’re excited to read

American Heiress: The Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin – review

This retelling of Patty Hearst’s life on the run with cack-handed revolutionaries is strangely uninvolving

Maggie Nelson: ‘There is no catharsis… the stories we tell ourselves don’t heal us’

The acclaimed author of The Argonauts talks about The Red Parts, published in Britain for the first time, which explores the murder of her aunt