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  • Published: 2 March 2027
  • ISBN: 9781761623851
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336
Categories:

True Grime

Inside Our Dirty Obsession with True Crime, Cults, and the Dark and Depraved




Provocative, darkly funny, and deeply self-aware, True Grime is not a catalogue of crimes, it’s a reckoning with the stories we consume, the ones we tell, and what they reveal about who we are.

True Grime isn't just a true crime book. It also asks why true crime became the biggest entertainment genre on earth.
You might think it's about murder, cults, serial killers, dark tourism and courtroom dramas. It is. And, it is about us.
It's about why sensible, compassionate, busy people can't stop pressing play.
Why women make up the overwhelming majority of true crime audiences.
Why we binge murder podcasts to relax.
True Grime is an investigation into why trauma has become entertainment.
Jordan Bissell has been that crime reporter standing outside murder scenes. She's interviewed victims' families, cult survivors, experts and legends like Hedley Thomas. She's also booked the Jonestown tour, binge-listened to crime podcasts, and understands exactly why the rest of us do, too.
She's funny, self-deprecating and inappropriate. And then, when you're laughing, she'll sucker punch you with a disarming question.
True Grime is curious. It's funny. It's deeply researched. And underneath all the wit is the question: How does all this storytelling shape our understanding of violence?
Part Jon Ronson, part Sarah Krasnostein, by the time you finish True Grime, you won't just be thinking differently about Ted Bundy or Jonestown.
You’ll be thinking differently about yourself.

  • Published: 2 March 2027
  • ISBN: 9781761623851
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336
Categories:

About the author

Jordan Bissell

Jordan Bissell was raised by a mum who devoured files full of autopsy photos for fun. Naturally, her earliest memory of death was the guilt-ridden fascination she had with a heat-struck possum decaying on the school oval. (Don't worry, she's over it. Mostly.) As Jordan matured, she realised she wasn’t the only person absorbed by the dark side of life. While working as a television crime reporter, she noticed the public’s obsession with stories about murders, cults, and violence spoke to a much broader societal affliction: a deep fixation on the macabre. Jordan lives in Brisbane with her two rescue cats. In her spare time, she enjoys pilates, daydreaming about hot criminals, and politely but firmly rejecting her mother’s repeated offers to “just pop over and look at some autopsy photos together.