Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on or the music we’re loving.

Stella Charls is watching The Jinx

I’m obsessing over crime right now. Not committing it, but consuming it, from true-crime tales to fictional thrillers. I’ve binge-watched Making a Murderer on Netflix (refusing to acknowledge 2016 had started until I finished all 10 episodes), am stuck into Season 2 of the podcast Serial, and have a tower of crime-y reading piled up next to my bed, threatening to crush me in my sleep. I’m particularly excited to get stuck into The Whites, Sharp Objects, Ghettoside, and A Murder Without Motive – to name a few…

All that aside, I’m still talking to everyone I know about The Jinx, my stand-out TV show from 2015. This six-part documentary series completely blew me away.

The Jinx was co-produced and directed by Andrew Jarecki (responsible for the incredibly affecting documentary Capturing the Friedmans). Jarecki tells the story of real-estate heir and accused murderer, Robert Durst. I don’t want to spoil too much, but I will tell you that The Jinx ends with an astonishing scene that will make your heart stop for a minute or two.

The series is not perfect, and many have criticised Jarecki’s reliance on re-enactments, but at the very least The Jinx provides plenty of fuel for discussion on the flaws entrenched in the American justice system. This is an incredibly compelling, slickly produced series that I challenge you not to watch in one sitting.

Nina Kenwood is reading A Murder Without Motive: The Killing of Rebecca Ryle by Martin McKenzie-Murray

I’m a big fan of Martin McKenzie-Murray’s journalism. A series of articles that he wrote in 2014 for The Saturday Paper on the brutal murder of an 11-month-old still haunts me to this day. He writes about difficult topics with great compassion, while never losing sight of the bigger story. So, I was very pleased to be given an advance copy of his upcoming book A Murder Without Motive: The Killing of Rebecca Ryle (available in February.)

McKenzie-Murray follows in Helen Garner’s footsteps and digs deeply into a murder case, trying to understand the events that would lead a young man with no criminal record to randomly murder a 19-year-old woman he barely knew. McKenzie-Murray’s book feels timely, with the current cultural focus on true crime stories (see Stella’s post above!). Several of these popular true crime documentaries and podcasts have been criticized for focusing so intently on the accused that the victim’s story is forgotten. This is not a criticism that can be applied to McKenzie-Murray’s work. As well as grappling with the murderer’s possible motives, McKenzie-Murray spends significant time telling Rebecca Ryle’s story and spending time with her family – who are remarkably open and candid about the toll losing their daughter has taken on the family.

I read this book in a day, and have thought about it ever since. It made me cry, but I’m glad I read it, and I would urge others to read it as well.

Alan Vaarwerk is listening to B'lieve I’m Goin Down… by Kurt Vile

‘Pretty Pimpin’, the lead single from B'lieve I’m Goin Down… wormed its way into my head late last year.

Since then, Kurt Vile’s album became the soundtrack to my summer break, which I spent in a country town not doing a hell of a lot. Vile’s dryly funny songwriting and laconic vocal delivery make songs like ‘That’s Life Tho (almost hate to say)’ and ‘Dust Bunnies’ evocative and poignant, and his mixture of country and grunge pop guitars give the album a relaxed groove, conjuring the disaffected agitation of a small town summer.

Bronte Coates is reading Iris and the Tiger by Leanne Hall

Where books are concerned, I’m on a bit of a dream run right now.

I finished 2015 with Richard Price’s The Whites – a nuanced crime thriller full of morally compromised characters that had me lingering over the memory of them for days. Then I started 2016 with Patricia Highsmith’s Carol – a menacing love story which had me on tenterhooks for a long stretch, before an emotional closing pages. I’ve since read two translated books – Susana Moreira Marques’s compelling Now and at the Hour of Our Death and Tove Jansson’s gentle, funny The Summer Book – plus two OzYA reads – Sally Morgan’s heartbreaking Sister Heart and an early copy of Jaclyn Moriarty’s upcoming A Tangle of Gold (which I loved, loved, loved).

Next on my list is an early copy of Iris and the Tiger, Leanne Hall’s new book for children 9+ which has been described as ‘reminiscent of Elizabeth Goudge’s classic The Little White Horse, full of mystery and an enchanting sense of elsewhere’. (The book is being launched at our Carlton shop on Thursday 4 February.)