The best true-crime podcasts: from The Girlfriends to Heists, Scams and Lies

Whether it is a story of murder, scams or stolen identities, true crime is among the most popular podcast genres. Here are some of the top listens, from the latest series of "The Girlfriends" to a look back at the £25 million jewellery robbery at Tamara Ecclestone's home.

The Girlfriends

The first series of "The Girlfriends", out in 2023, was a "nine-part deep dive into the 1985 murder of Gail Katz by her husband", said Sarah Ditum in The Times. It was "different" to other true crime shows at the time as it "showed the victims as whole people rather than just salivating over their anguish". In fact, it was "so victim-centred, it was even presented by one of them, the winningly potty-mouthed Carole Fisher", who had been in a relationship with the convicted murderer. The show is now back for a "corking third series", although there's no Fisher this time. Instead, producer Anna Sinfield turns host and the focus is on Kelly Harnett, who – after a tough life growing up in Queens – was implicated in a murder by her boyfriend. "'The Girlfriends' is much more than true crime with a feminist-friendly gloss," said Ditum. "It's about how justice fails in the grey area between victim and villain, but also how one bloody-minded woman can change herself and make a difference."

Shadow World: The Grave Robbers

"How delightful that dogged, bloody-minded investigative journalism has made Sue Mitchell a star reporter in her 60s," said Patricia Nicol in The Sunday Times. She is the wonderfully "no-nonsense" journalist behind such podcasts as "Girl Taken" (2020), "Million Dollar Lover" (2023), and last year's award-winning "To Catch a Scorpion" (about cross-Channel people-smugglers). Her latest is "Shadow World: The Grave Robbers", in which she tracks down a gang of Hungarian alleged fraudsters who appear to have been forging wills and exploiting loopholes in the probate system to claim the estates of people who died intestate, or without a recent will – and so rob their rightful heirs of the property. The series only launched in early July, yet it has already had an impact: after the first episode was broadcast, the Ministry of Justice took the Bona Vacantia – a register of unclaimed estates in England and Wales – offline, to make it harder for criminals to hunt down targets. It's a "corker of a series".

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Unicorn Girl

Two years after her hit podcast "Scamanda", broadcaster Charlie Webster is back with another case of a female scammer. Candace Rivera appears to have the "perfect life", running a global non-profit organisation that tackles human trafficking, but one summer the illusion "shattered to the horror of her many friends", said Kayla Cobb at The Wrap. "Much like 'Scamanda'", about a woman who faked having cancer, "'Unicorn Girl' isn't just about telling a wild true crime story". It "dives into Rivera's circle of friends" and "mirrors the confusion, doubt, anger and hurt they felt dealing with this master manipulator".

Pipeline: Left to Die

The second episode of this "unmissable electric shock of a show" from the Daily Mail's investigative journalist Isabelle Stanley is "one of the tensest things I've ever heard", said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer. Stanley tells the story of four divers who died in February 2022 off the coast of Trinidad after they were "sucked with enormous force into the pipe they were mending". A fifth man who escaped "describes how he was smashed along the pipe like a ball". There's also a GoPro recording of the disaster. "Every terrifying detail all true, all lived" will burn itself "unforgettably into your brain". Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the new prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, "has promised to bring about justice and she surely must".

Dancing with Shadows

George Balanchine, the co-founder of the New York City Ballet, was "one of the most revered figures in dance", but not everyone held him in high regard, said Fiona Sturges in the Financial Times. "Dancing with Shadows" looks at the legacy of Balanchine, who died in 1983, "because of the culture he fostered that can still be felt decades after his death". The dance company has been "mired in scandal" in recent years, with allegations of mental abuse, body shaming and sexual harassment. Journalist and producer Nicky Anderson, who talks about her own love of dance, offers a "rare and penetrating portrait of a notoriously closed world where dancers often sacrifice a personal life, bodily autonomy and their health in pursuit of their art".

Sea of Lies

This "expertly produced" podcast from CBC's "Uncover" series tells the story of Canadian con-man Albert Walker, brought to justice by the discovery of a dead man's Rolex watch, said The New Yorker. It begins off the coast of Devon in 1996, when a father and son "make a grisly discovery in the net of their trawler". Presenter Sam Mullins "patiently unspools a head-spinning mystery of keen detective work, false identities, embezzlement schemes and murder". It "makes for a vivid parable about the creative treachery of some financial crime" and how important "guarding against it" is. Mullins promises that the story will "blow your mind". And it will.

Heists, Scams and Lies

Daily Mail crime correspondent George Odling and senior reporter Andy Jehring have spent five years investigating the £25 million jewellery robbery at Formula One heiress Tamara Ecclestone's London home in 2019, and it shows, said The Independent. This is a podcast that "puts listeners in the room" with those directly involved in the case, featuring exclusive interviews with Jay Rutland, Ecclestone's husband, the police chiefs who led the investigation, and "even acquaintances of the thieves themselves". Whether you're a "true crime fanatic" who already has thorough knowledge of the crime that was one of the Met's "most iconic sting operations" or entirely new to the case, "Heists, Scams and Lies" is sure to steal your attention.

Snitch City

The Boston Globe's investigative team is known for its exposés of institutional corruption – such as the cover-up of abuses in the Catholic Church depicted in the Oscar-winning film "Spotlight", said Sturges in the Financial Times. The newspaper's "gripping" podcast, "Snitch City", about police informants in New Bedford, Massachusetts, is very much in that tradition. Reporter Dugan Arnett spent two years penetrating crime networks in New Bedford, a city where police are locked in a fierce battle with drug gangs, and he has a rare talent for getting people to talk. What emerges is a "remarkable piece of reporting" – a multilayered story of police "drunk on power, informants hung out to dry and officials closing ranks to protect their own". The tension lies "not in exposing the bad guys, but in seeing what the so-called good guys do to get results – and the extraordinary damage left in their wake".

The Golden Toilet Heist

"I waive my usual moral objection to true-crime podcasts for 'The Golden Toilet Heist', a splendidly light-hearted caper from the BBC's 'Crime Next Door' series," said James Marriott in The Times. The case is well known: in 2019, thieves broke into Blenheim Palace and stole a solid gold toilet worth £5 million from an art exhibition. While not quite a victimless crime, it is "hard to summon much grief over it". And there is something "irreducibly British" about the tale – "like Agatha Christie or Richard Osman via Salvador Dalí". It is a story "so absurd that it has the pleasing effect of making everyone involved sound rather mad". Presenter Clodagh Stenson brings verve, humour and a welcome dose of "whimsy" to proceedings.

Bed of Lies

The terrific third series of the award-winning investigative podcast "Bed of Lies" is "not for the faint-hearted", said Marriott in The Times. Its subject is the execution-style murders of three Catholic men in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, none of whom had connections to paramilitary activity. The first episode focuses on Michael Power, who was shot dead by three gunmen who forced his car to stop as he was driving to Mass. His wife and children were with him – and one of them was horrifically injured by shattering glass. Written and presented by the Telegraph journalist Cara McGoogan, the podcast examines the devastating impact of these murders. But it also explores the links between the killers – members of the loyalist Ulster Defence Association – and the British Army and police. "It's gripping and shocking stuff, sensitively told."

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