# Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime

The Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime, established in 1948, is presented to nonfiction hardcover, paperback, or electronic books about mystery. The category includes both true crime books, as well as books "detailing how to solve actual crimes."
The Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime winners are listed below.

## Recipients
### 1940s

1940s Best Fact Crime winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Result | Ref. |
| 1948 | Edward D. Radin | Twelve Against the Law | Winner | |
| 1949 | Marie Rodell (editor) | Regional Murder | Winner | |

### 1950s

1950s Best Fact Crime winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 1950 | Joseph Henry Jackson | Bad Company | Winner |
| 1951 | Edward D. Radin | Twelve Against Crime | Winner |
| 1951 | William T. Brannon | N/A | Shortlist |
| 1952 | St. Clair McKelway | True Tales from the Annals of Crime and Rascality | Winner |
| 1952 | W. T. Brannon | Lady Killers | Shortlist |
| 1953 | Erle Stanley Gardner | Court of Last Resort | Winner |
| 1954 | John Bartlow Martin | Why Did They Kill? | Winner |
| 1955 | Charles Boswell and Lewis Thompson | The Girl with the Scarlet Brand | Winner |
| 1956 | Manly Wade Wellman | Dead and Gone | Winner |
| 1956 | Lillian de la Torre | The Truth About Belle Guness | Shortlist |
| 1956 | Robert J. Donovan | The Assassins | Shortlist |
| 1957 | Charles Samuels and Louise Samuels | Night Fell on Georgia | Winner |
| 1957 | William Bradford Huie | Ruby McCollum, The Woman in the Suwanne Jail | Shortlist |
| 1957 | Hugh Ross Williamson | Historical Whodunits | Shortlist |
| 1958 | Harold R. Danforth and James D. Horan | The D.A.'s Man | Winner |
| 1958 | Lenore Glen Offord and Joseph Henry Jackson | The Girl in the Belfry | Shortlist |
| 1958 | Henry Goddard, edited by Patrick Pringle | Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner | Shortlist |
| 1959 | Wenzell Brown | They Died in the Chair | Winner |
| 1959 | Edward D. Radin | The Deadly Reasons | Shortlist |
| 1959 | Sam Kollman as told to Hillel Black | The Royal Vultures | Shortlist |
| 1959 | Edgar Lustgarten | The Murder and the Trial | Shortlist |
| 1959 | Berton Donovan | The Incurable Wound | Shortlist |

### 1960s

1960s Best Fact Crime winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 1960 | Thomas Gallagher | Fire at Sea | Winner |
| 1960 | Eugene B. Block | Great Train Robberies of the West | Shortlist |
| 1961 | Miriam Allen deFord | The Overbury Affair | Winner |
| 1961 | Sir Sydney Smith | Mostly Murder | Shortlist |
| 1961 | Christianna Brand | Heaven Knows Who | Shortlist |
| 1962 | Barrett Prettyman, Jr. | Death and the Supreme Court | Winner |
| 1962 | Paul Holmes | The Sheppard Murder Case | Shortlist |
| 1962 | Edward D. Radin | Lizzie Borden: The Untold Story | Shortlist |
| 1962 | George Waller | Kidnap | Shortlist |
| 1963 | Francis Russell | Tragedy in Dedham | Winner |
| 1964 | Gerold Frank | The Deed | Winner |
| 1964 | Brad Williams | Flight 967 | Shortlist |
| 1964 | Peter Wyden | The Hired Killers | Shortlist |
| 1965 | Anthony Lewis | Gideon's Trumpet | Winner |
| 1965 | William Kunstler | The Minister and the Choir Singer | Shortlist |
| 1965 | Norman Lewis | The Honored Society | Shortlist |
| 1965 | Wayne G. Broehl, Jr. | The Molly Maguires | Shortlist |
| 1965 | Arthur H. Lewis | Lament for the Molly Maguires | Shortlist |
| 1966 | Truman Capote | In Cold Blood | Winner |
| 1966 | Harry Golden | A Little Girl is Dead | Shortlist |
| 1966 | Michael V. DiSalle with Lawrence G. Blochman | The Power of Life and Death | Shortlist |
| 1966 | Miriam Allen deFord | Murderers Sane and Mad | Shortlist |
| 1966 | Jürgen Thorwald | The Century of the Detective | Shortlist |
| 1967 | Gerold Frank | The Boston Strangler | Winner |
| 1967 | Julian Symons | Crime and Detection | Shortlist |
| 1967 | Elwyn Jones | The Last Two to Hang | Shortlist |
| 1968 | Victoria Lincoln | A Private Disgrace | Winner |
| 1968 | Margaret Kreig | Black Market Medicine | Shortlist |
| 1968 | Selwyn Raab | Justice in the Back Room | Shortlist |
| 1968 | Curt Gentry | Frame-Up | Shortlist |
| 1969 | John Walsh | Poe the Detective | Winner |
| 1969 | John Frasca | The Mulberry Tree | Shortlist |
| 1969 | Norman Zierold | Three Sisters in Black | Shortlist |

### 1970s

1970s Best Fact Crime winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 1970 | Herbert B. Ehrmann | The Case that Will Not Die | Winner |
| 1970 | Don T. Block | Scottsboro | Shortlist |
| 1970 | Bernard Lefkowitz and Kenneth Gross | The Victims | Shortlist |
| 1970 | Fred C. Shapiro | Whitmore | Shortlist |
| 1971 | Mildred Savage | A Great Fall | Winner |
| 1971 | Girard Chester | The Ninth Juror | Shortlist |
| 1971 | Ramsey Clark | Crime in America | Shortlist |
| 1972 | Sandor Frankel | Beyond a Reasonable Doubt | Winner |
| 1972 | Robert Sullivan | The Disappearance of Dr. Parkman | Shortlist |
| 1972 | William A. Clark | The Girl on the Volkswagen Floor | Shortlist |
| 1973 | Stephen Fay, Lewis Chester, and Magnus Linkletter | Hoax | Winner |
| 1973 | A. C. Greene | The Santa Claus Bank Robbery | Shortlist |
| 1973 | Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts | Shipwreck | Shortlist |
| 1973 | T. P. Slattery | They Got to Find Me Guilty Yet | Shortlist |
| 1974 | Barbara Levy | Legacy of Death | Winner |
| 1974 | Louis Nizer | The Implosion Conspiracy | Shortlist |
| 1974 | Paulette Cooper | The Medical Detectives | Shortlist |
| 1974 | John Pearson | The Profession of Violence | Shortlist |
| 1974 | Ed Cray | Burden of Proof | Shortlist |
| 1975 | Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry | Helter Skelter | Winner |
| 1975 | Gerald Meyer | The Memphis Murders | Shortlist |
| 1975 | Ernest Tidyman | Dummy | Shortlist |
| 1976 | Tom Wicker | A Time to Die | Winner |
| 1976 | Gene Miller | Invitation to a Lynching | Shortlist |
| 1976 | Isser Harel | The House on Garibaldi Street | Shortlist |
| 1977 | Thomas Thompson | Blood and Money | Winner |
| 1977 | Edward Keyes | The Michigan Murders | Shortlist |
| 1977 | Margaret Anne Barnes | Murder in Coweta County | Shortlist |
| 1978 | George Jonas and Barbara Amiel | By Persons Unknown | Winner |
| 1978 | Lacey Fosburgh | Closing Time: The True Story of the Goodbar Murder | Shortlist |
| 1978 | Clark Howard | Six Against the Rock | Shortlist |
| 1978 | Vin McLellan and Paul Avery | The Voice of Guns | Shortlist |
| 1978 | Roberta S. Feuerlicht | Justice Crucified | Shortlist |
| 1979 | Vincent Bugliosi and Ken Hurwitz | Til Death Do Us Part | Winner |
| 1979 | Jack W. Baugh and Jefferson Morgan | Why Have They Taken Our Children? | Shortlist |
| 1979 | Charles Silberman | Criminal Violence | Shortlist |
| 1979 | Alan Weinstein | Perjury | Shortlist |

### 1980s

| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 1980 | Robert Lindsey | The Falcon and the Snowman | Winner |
| 1980 | Shana Alexander | Anyone's Daughter | Shortlist |
| 1980 | Gary Cartwright | Blood Will Tell | Shortlist |
| 1980 | Stephen H. Gettinger | Sentenced to Die | Shortlist |
| 1980 | Clark Howard | Zebra | Shortlist |
| 1981 | Fred Harwell | A True Deliverance | Winner |
| 1981 | John Dinges and Saul Landau | Assassination on Embassy Row | Shortlist |
| 1981 | Thomas Hawser | The Trial of Policeman Thomas Shea | Shortlist |
| 1982 | Robert W. Greene | The Sting Man | Winner |
| 1982 | Ellen Godfrey | By Reason of Doubt | Shortlist |
| 1982 | Gregory Wallance | Papa's Game | Shortlist |
| 1982 | Seymour Reit | The Day They Stole the Mona Lisa | Shortlist |
| 1982 | Daniel Keyes | The Minds of Billy Milligan | Shortlist |
| 1983 | Richard Hammer | The Vatican Connection | Winner |
| 1983 | Ernest Tidyman | Big Bucks | Shortlist |
| 1983 | William Randolph Stevens | Deadly Intentions | Shortlist |
| 1983 | David McClintick | Indecent Exposure | Shortlist |
| 1983 | Myron Farber | Somebody is Lying: The Story of Doctor X. | Shortlist |
| 1984 | Shana Alexander | Very Much a Lady | Winner |
| 1984 | Lawrence O'Donnell | Deadly Force | Shortlist |
| 1984 | B.C. Hall and Bob Lancaster | Judgement Day | Shortlist |
| 1984 | Jack Olsen | Son | Shortlist |
| 1984 | William Wright | The Von Bulow Affair | Shortlist |
| 1985 | Mike Weiss | Double Play: The San Francisco City Hall Killings | Winner |
| 1985 | John Cornwell | Earth to Earth | Shortlist |
| 1985 | Jim Atkinson and John Bloom | Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs | Shortlist |
| 1985 | David Black | Murder at the Met | Shortlist |
| 1985 | Jane Pejsa | The Molineux Affair | Shortlist |
| 1986 | Stephen M.L. Aronson and Natalie Robins | Savage Grace | Winner |
| 1986 | Jonathan Coleman | At Mother's Request: A True Story of Money, Murder, and Betrayal | Shortlist |
| 1986 | Shana Alexander | Nutcracker: Money, Madness, Murder: A Family Album | Shortlist |
| 1986 | Gordon Burn | Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son: The Story of the Yorkshire Ripper | Shortlist |
| 1986 | Ludovic Kennedy | The Airman and the Carpenter: The Lindbergh Kidnapping and the Framing of Richard Hauptmann | Shortlist |
| 1986 | Brian Kates | The Murder of a Shopping Bag Lady | Shortlist |
| 1987 | Carlton Stowers | Careless Whispers: The True Story of a Triple Murder and the Determined Lawman Who Wouldn't Give Up | Winner |
| 1987 | Johnny France and Malcolm McConnell | Incident at Big Sky: Sheriff Johnny France and the Mountain Men | Shortlist |
| 1987 | Alan Prendergast | The Poison Tree: A True Story of Family Violence and Revenge | Shortlist |
| 1987 | Daniel Keyes | Unveiling Claudia: A True Story of Serial Murder | Shortlist |
| 1987 | Nicholas Pileggi | Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family | Shortlist |
| 1988 | Richard Hammer | CBS Murders | Winner |
| 1988 | Robert Mayer | Dreams of Ada | Shortlist |
| 1988 | Loretta Schwartz-Nobel | Engaged to Murder | Shortlist |
| 1988 | Stephen Singular | Talked to Death | Shortlist |
| 1988 | Ira Berkow | The Man Who Robbed the Pierre | Shortlist |
| 1989 | Harry N. MacLean | In Broad Daylight | Winner |
| 1989 | Robert Lindsey | A Gathering of Saints | Shortlist |
| 1989 | Pete Earley | Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring | Shortlist |
| 1989 | Lindsey Gruson and John Hubner | Monkey on a Stick | Shortlist |
| 1989 | Paul Eddy, Hugo Sabogal, and Sara Walden | The Cocaine Wars | Shortlist |

### 1990s

1990s Best Fact Crime winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 1990 | Jack Olsen | Doc: The Rape of the Town of Lovell | Winner |
| 1990 | Joseph Wambaugh | The Blooding: The True Story of the Narborough Village Murders | Shortlist |
| 1990 | Linda Wolfe | Wasted: The Preppie Murder | Shortlist |
| 1990 | Peter Elkind | The Death Shift: The True Story of Nurse Genene Jones and the Texas Baby Murders | Shortlist |
| 1990 | Darcy O'Brien | Murder in Little Egypt | Shortlist |
| 1991 | Peter Maas | In a Child's Name | Winner |
| 1991 | John Cummings and Ernest Volkman | Goombata | Shortlist |
| 1991 | Ken Englade | Beyond Reason | Shortlist |
| 1991 | Barry Siegel | A Death in White Bear Lake | Shortlist |
| 1992 | David Simon | Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets | Winner |
| 1992 | Christopher Joyce and Eric Stover | Witnesses from the Grace: The Stories Bones Tell | Shortlist |
| 1992 | Joseph F. O'Brien and Andris Kurins | Boss of Bosses: The Fall of the Godfather: The FBI and Pauk Castellano | Shortlist |
| 1992 | James B. Stewart | Den of Thieves | Shortlist |
| 1992 | Charles C. Thompson II and James P. Cole | Death of Elvis: What Really Happened | Shortlist |
| 1993 | Harry Farrell | Swift Justice | Winner |
| 1993 | Jana Bommersbach | The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd | Shortlist |
| 1993 | Thomas H. Cook | Blood Echoes | Shortlist |
| 1993 | Ann Rule | Everything She Ever Wanted | Shortlist |
| 1993 | Jim Schutze | My Husband's Trying to Kill Me | Shortlist |
| 1994 | Bella Stumbo | Until the Twelfth of Never | Winner |
| 1994 | Noel Behn | Lindbergh: The Crime | Shortlist |
| 1994 | Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith | Final Justice | Shortlist |
| 1994 | Jack Olsen | The Misbegotten Son | Shortlist |
| 1994 | David Protess and Rob Warden | Gone in the Night | Shortlist |
| 1995 | Joe Domanick | To Protect and to Serve | Winner |
| 1995 | Jerry Bledsoe | Before He Wakes | Shortlist |
| 1995 | Edward Humes | Mississippi Mud | Shortlist |
| 1995 | Dennis McDougal | In the Best of Families | Shortlist |
| 1995 | Eileen McNamara | Breakdown | Shortlist |
| 1996 | Pete Earley | Circumstantial Evidence | Winner |
| 1996 | John Douglas and Mark Olshaker | Mindhunter | Shortlist |
| 1996 | T. J. English | Born to Kill | Shortlist |
| 1996 | James Neff | Unfinished Murder | Shortlist |
| 1996 | Jim Schutze | By Two and Two | Shortlist |
| 1997 | Darcy O'Brien | Power to Hurt | Winner |
| 1998 | Carlton Stowers | To the Last Breath | Winner |
| 1998 | Jerry Bledsoe | Death Sentence | Shortlist |
| 1998 | Rich Cohen | Tough Jews | Shortlist |
| 1998 | Timothy Dumas | Greentown | Shortlist |
| 1998 | Richard A. Serrano | One of Ours | Shortlist |
| 1999 | Richard Firstman | The Death of Innocents | Winner |
| 1999 | Bernard Lefkowitz | Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb | Shortlist |
| 1999 | Ben MacIntyre | The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief | Shortlist |
| 1999 | Ann Rule | Bitter Harvest: A Woman's Fury, a Mother's Sacrifice | Shortlist |
| 1999 | John C. Tucker | May God Have Mercy: A True Story of Crime and Punishment | Shortlist |

### 2000s

2000s Best Fact Crime winners and shortlists :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2000 | James B. Stewart | Blind Eye | Winner |
| 2000 | Ann Rule | And Never Let Her Go | Shortlist |
| 2000 | James St. James | Disco Bloodbath | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Edward Humes | Mean Justice | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Jim Fisher | The Ghosts of Hopewell | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill | Black Mass: The Irish Mob, The FBI, & A Devil's Deal | Winner |
| 2001 | Don Foster | Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous | Shortlist |
| 2001 | John Evangelist Walsh | Moonlight: Abraham Lincoln and the Almanac Trial | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Jeanne Boylan | Portraits of Guilt: The Woman Who Profiles the Faces of America's Deadliest Criminals | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Joshua Armstrong and Anthony Bruno | The Seekers: A Bounty Hunter's Story | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Kent Walker | Son of a Grifter | Winner |
| 2002 | Jonathan H. Pincus | Base Instincts: What Makes a Killer Kill? | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Roy Hazelwood and Stephen G. Michaud | Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide and the Criminal Mind | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Joe Jackson | Leavenworth Train: A Fugitive's Search for Justice in the Vanishing West | Shortlist |
| 2002 | James Neff | The Wrong Man: The Final Verdict in the Dr. Sam Sheppard Murder Case | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Joseph Wambaugh | Fire Lover | Winner |
| 2003 | Albert Borowitz | Blood and Ink: International Guide to Fact-Based Crime Literature | Shortlist |
| 2003 | James Ruddick | Death at the Priory: Sex, Love and Murder in Victorian England | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Douglas Century and Rick Cowan | Takedown: The Fall of the Last Mafia Empire | Shortlist |
| 2003 | John Taylor | The Count and the Confession | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Erik Larson | The Devil in the White City | Winner |
| 2004 | Steve Oney | And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan & the Lynching of Leo Frank | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Steve Hodel | Black Dahlia Avenger - The True Story | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Dick Lehr and Mitchell Zuckoff | Judgement Ridge: The True Story Behind the Dartmouth Murders | Shortlist |
| 2004 | David Pietrusza | Rothstien: The Life, Times, & Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Edward Dolnick | Conviction: Solving the Moxley Murder: A Reporter and a Detective's Twenty-Year Search for Justice | Winner |
| 2005 | Suzanne O'Malley | Are You There Alone?: The Unspeakable Crime of Andrea Yates | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Julian Rubinstein | Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts | Shortlist |
| 2005 | D.P. Lyle | Forensics for Dummies | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Ann Rule | Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer -- America's Deadliest Serial Murderer | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Marissa N. Batt | Ready for the People: My Most Chilling Cases as Prosecutor | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Edward Dolnick | Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece | Winner |
| 2006 | Jed Horne | Desire Street: A True Story of Death and Deliverance in New Orleans | Shortlist |
| 2006 | John Emsley | The Elements of Murder: The History of Poison | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Michael Finkel | True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Diane Fanning | Written in Blood | Shortlist |
| 2007 | James L. Swanson | Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer | Winner |
| 2007 | Sebastian Junger | A Death in Belmont | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Kate Clark Flora Joseph K. Loughlin | Finding Amy: A True Story of Murder in Maine | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Robin Odell | Ripperology: A Study of the World's First Serial Killer | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Terri Jentz | Strange Piece of Paradise | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Daniel Stashower | The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe and the Invention of Murder | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Vincent Bugliosi | The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy | Winner |
| 2008 | Kevin Flynn | Relentless Pursuit: A True Story of Family, Murder, and the Prosecutor Who Wouldn't Quit | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Bruce Watson | Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, The Murders and the Judgment of Mankind | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Stanley Alpert | The Birthday Party | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Howard Blum | American Lightning: Terror, Mystery and the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century | Winner |
| 2009 | Simon Baatz | For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb and the Murder that Shocked Chicago | Shortlist |
| 2009 | T.J. English | Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost it to the Revolution | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Jonathan Lopez | The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Hans van Meegeren | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Kate Summerscale | The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher | Shortlist |

### 2010s

2010s Best Fact Crime winners and shortlists :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2010 | Dave Cullen | Columbine | Winner |
| 2010 | Jeff Guinn | Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Laney Salisbury Aly Sujo | Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Dick Lehr | The Fence: A Police Cover-Up Along Bostons Racial Divide | Shortlist |
| 2010 | R. A. Scotti | Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Ken Armstrong Nick Perry | Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity | Winner |
| 2011 | Scott Higham Sari Horwitz | Finding Chandra: A True Washington Murder Mystery | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Hampton Sides | Hellhound on his Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for his Assassin | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Alex Heard | The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in Jim Crow South | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Douglas Starr | The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Candice Millard | Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President | Winner |
| 2012 | Paul Collins | The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars | Shortlist |
| 2012 | T. J. English | The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Steve Miller | Girl, Wanted: The Chase for Sarah Pender | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Mark Seal | The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Imposter | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Paul French | Midnight in Peking | Winner |
| 2013 | Gilbert King | Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Ben Macintyre | Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies | Shortlist |
| 2013 | P. D. Lyle | More Forensics and Fiction: Crime Writers' Morbidly Curious Questions Expertly Answered | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Richard Lloyd Parry | The People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo - and the Evil that Swallowed Her Up | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Daniel Stashower | The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War | Winner |
| 2014 | Paul Collins | Duel with the Devil: The True Story of How Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr Teamed Up to Take on America's First Sensational Murder Mystery | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Michael D’Antonio | Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Charles Graeber | The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Cate Lineberry | The Secret Rescue: An Untold Story of American Nurses and the Medics Behind Nazi Lines | Shortlist |
| 2015 | William J. Mann | Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood | Winner |
| 2015 | Kevin Cook | Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Carl Hoffman | The Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Lacy M. Johnson | The Other Side: A Memoir | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Harold Schechter | The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, the Model, and the Murder that Shook the Nation | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Allen Kurzweil | Whipping Boy: The Forty-Year Search for My Twelve-Year-Old Bully | Winner |
| 2016 | Eric Bogosian | Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide | Shortlist |
| 2016 | T. J. English | Where the Bodies Were Buried: Whitey Bulger and the World That Made Him | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Val McDermid | Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime | Shortlist |
| 2016 | John Temple | American Pain: How a Young Felon and his Ring of Doctors Unleashed America's Deadliest Drug Epidemic | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Kate Summerscale | The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer | Winner |
| 2017 | Vincent diMaio Ron Franscell | Morgue: A Life in Death | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Laurence Leamer | The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle that Brought Down the Klan | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Paul Thomas Murphy | Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbrooke Lane: A True Story of Victorian Law and Disorder: The Unsolved Murder that Shocked Victorian England | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Eli Sanders | While the City Slept: A Love Lost to Violence and a Young Man's Descent into Madness | Shortlist |
| 2018 | David Grann | Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI | Winner |
| 2018 | Jeff Guinn | The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Monica Hesse | American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Bill James | The Man From the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Brad Ricca | Mrs. Sherlock Holmes: The True Story of New York City's Greatest Female Detective and the 1917 Missing Girl Case that Captivated a Nation | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Robert W. Fieseler | Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation | Winner |
| 2019 | Jonathan Green | Sex Money Murder: A Story of Crack, Blood, and Betrayal | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Carl Hoffman | The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Kirk Wallace Johnson | The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Michelle McNamara | I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Alex Perry | The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World's Most Powerful Mafia | Shortlist |

### 2020s

2020s Best Fact Crime winners and shortlists :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2020 | Axton Betz-Hamilton | The Less People Know About Us: A Mystery of Betrayal, Family Secrets, and Stolen Identity | Winner |
| 2020 | Karen Abbott | The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder that Shocked Jazz-Age America | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Maureen Callahan | American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Peter Houlahan | Norco '80: The True Story of the Most Spectacular Bank Robbery in American History | Shortlist |
| 2020 | James Polchin | Indecent Advances: A Hidden History of True Crime and Prejudice Before Stonewall | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Eric Eyre | Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight Against the Drug Companies that Delivered the Opioid Epidemic | Winner |
| 2021 | Mark A. Bradley | Blood Runs Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Emma Copley Eisenberg | The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Sierra Crane Murdoch | Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Ariel Sabar | Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Elon Green | Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York | Winner |
| 2022 | Margalit Fox | The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Ann Hagedorn | Sleeper Agent: The Atomic Spy in America Who Got Away | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Ellen McGarrahan | Two Truths and a Lie: A Murder, a Private Investigator, and Her Search for Justice | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Benjamin T Smith | The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Curtis Wilkie | When Evil Lived in Laurel: The "White Knights" and the Murder of Vernon Dahmer | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Erika Krouse | Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation | Winner |
| 2023 | Kathleen Hale | Slenderman | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Kathryn Miles | Trailed | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Shahan Mufti | American Caliph | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Daniel Stashower | American Demon | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Nathan Masters | Crooked: The Roaring '20s Tale of a Corrupt Attorney General, a Crusading Senator, and the Birth of the American Political Scandal | Winner |
| 2024 | Kim Cross | In Light of All Darkness: Inside the Polly Klaas Kidnapping and the Search for America’s Child | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Zeke Faux | Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall | Shortlist |
| 2024 | John Glatt | Tangled Vines: Power, Privilege, and the Murdaugh Family Murders | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Barbara Rae-Venter | I Know Who You Are: How an Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked the Golden State Killer and Changed Crime Fighting Forever | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Joe Sexton | The Lost Sons of Omaha: Two Young Men in an American Tragedy | Shortlist |