Joanne Drayton
Joanne Drayton, Ph.D., is a true crime historian and New York Times bestselling author who has published seven books.
Latest from Joanne Drayton
With a Dash of Doubt, the ‘Mushroom Murders’ Case Leaves Some Watchers Craving More
A woman protagonist, a poisoning, and lingering doubt about motive and guilt — the story of “mushroom murderer” Erin Patterson, convicted in July for killing four in-laws by serving poisonous mushrooms, has the ingredients of a true crime thriller. Here are the facts of the case as revealed in the trial.
Eight Decades On, Vanuatu Still Struggles With America’s World War II Legacy
America’s wartime sailor turned Pulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener celebrated the South Pacific’s “infinite specks of coral.” But those precious coastlines and the Indigenous people who relied on them were left to suffer when the U.S. dumped tons of military equipment and food into the waters off Vanuatu.
Truth, Lies and DNA Testing
The news in March that 23andMe had filed for bankruptcy sent customers scrambling to delete their DNA data. Having written about true crime, I already understood that DNA reveals much more than just our genetic material. But I never envisioned it upending my own family’s story.
Walking the Camino to Santiago de Compostela
I wanted to understand what pilgrims’ journeys meant to them, and why shrines and their relics, which should be anathema in modern times, continue to draw huge numbers of people. So my partner Sue and I joined the throngs seeking answers on the Camino to Santiago de Compostela.
Exploring Paul Gauguin’s Search for the ‘Primitive’ in Tahiti
In April 2024, I was reading Gauguin’s journal of his time in Tahiti, in preparation for a seminar I was to give to passengers on the cruise ship Ovation of the Seas. Little did I realize how transformative this selection would be.
The Crime Writer Whose Life Began as a Teen Murderer
One of New Zealand’s most infamous murders occurred in the upright, uptight atmosphere of postwar Christchurch. Decades later, I met one of the perpetrators, a successful crime writer, and found someone trying to make meaning out of a life that had begun horribly.
How the Queens of Crime Fiction Developed a Modern Myth
Between World War I and the Great Depression, the murder mystery was perfected by four women writers, gaining stratospheric popularity. Amid unparalleled social change, fictional detectives offered to symbolically restore traditional values, in a new myth for a rational age.
A Māori Finds Her Royal Roots
Having a whakapapa for Māori is more than having a family tree. The names of tīpuna (ancestors), the events, the places, the mountains and rivers locate and anchor Māori on the timeline of their heritage. This is the miracle of whakapapa: when ancestors whisper secrets to their mokopuna (grandchildren).
How a Million-Dollar Viking Chess Piece Was Found in a Kitchen Drawer
A knickknack from a Scottish family’s kitchen drawer turned out to be a Viking chess piece from the celebrated Lewis hoard and sold at Sotheby’s for almost $1 million — testimony to the power of the mundane to mask the simply unimaginable.