This week, our editors recommend stories by Bushra Seddique, Simon van Zuylen-Wood, Laura Mauldin, Kathryn Miles, and Lucas Mann.
True Crime
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Three Amateurs Solved the Zodiac Killer’s ‘340’ Cipher
In 1969, the Zodiac Killer sent an encoded note to the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2020, someone finally cracked the code. And that someone was three people, with zero cryptography experience, who had met in an online true-crime forum. Kathryn Miles tells you how, and the result is a must for any puzzle fan. Most experts, […]
Posted inCuration, Nonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend longreads by Kelsey Vlamis, Brian Feldman, Skip Hollandsworth, Tessa Somberg, and Alison Espach.
Posted inReading List
Stranger Things: A Reading List of Unsolved Mysteries
Tales of odd phenomena stoke our imagination even as they tease us.
Posted inNonfiction
A Carefully Constructed Li(f)e
Tim Brown seemed like a typical Florida retiree: He loved doting on his wife, fishing with friends, and flying his plane. But his life was built on a secret.
Posted inNonfiction
‘This Wasn’t His First Time’
A kidnapping deemed a hoax, the newbie detective who cracked the case, and the Harvard-trained lawyer whose mental unraveling set the whole story in motion.
Posted inNonfiction
How to Save True Crime: A Reading List of Wrongful Conviction Stories
Stories about wrongful convictions open our eyes to systemic injustices in the U.S. court system. Maurice Chammah, a staff writer at The Marshall Project, compiles his recommended longreads within the genre.
Posted inNonfiction
A Sketch Artist, a Grieving Mother, and An Unsolved Mystery
They set out to solve a cold case. The more they dug, the more terrifying the truth became.
