I'll admit, I have a lot of weird interests. Many of them I will never share with the public, but one that I'm at least semi-comfortable admitting is my interest in murderers. Serial killers, unsolved crimes, all of that stuff is just horribly fascinating to me and I know a lot of people will find me weird for that. Although, with the release of the Netflix original series "Making a Murderer," it seems that my hobby isn't so unusual. That being said, I have been reading a lot of books about serial killers (both fictional and nonfictional, yay true crime!) and I figured I would share some of my favorites as well as a few that I'm excited to read.

1. The Axeman

"American Horror Story" fans might be semi-familiar with The Axeman, as he was a character in the show's third season "Coven," but did you know that he was a real serial killer back in the early 1900s? During the year of 1919 in New Orleans, several people were murdered via blows to the head and body with an axe. The killer was never found, despite having sent out letters to newspapers in which The Axeman instructed people to have Jazz music playing in their homes all night in order to avoid becoming his next victim. Because the case was never solved and The Axeman's own convictions that he was The Devil Himself, he has become something of a ghost story down in good ol' New Orleans.

Ray Celestin's book "The Axeman" takes on this unsolved crime through the eyes of three very different characters. There's Detective Michael Talbot, who is currently the most hated man in the entire police precinct and is attempting to save face by catching the murderer plaguing his city. Luca D'Andrea, an Italian ex-cop who had been working for the Mafia during his time on the force, recently out of prison and tasked by none other than the head honcho himself to find The Axeman. Last but certainly not least, there's Ida, an ambitious black woman who has wanted to be a detective all her life but has been denied opportunities for years both because of her race as well as her gender. She takes it upon herself, with the aid of her friend Lewis Armstrong - yes, the Louie Armstrong - to catch this murderer as well as expose what she believes is a huge conspiracy behind the murders.

Each character has their own personal struggles as well as social problems to work through in order to solve the crime, and while I have not finished it yet, I am completely hooked. This book reads pretty quickly and I am so excited to get to the bottom of the mystery.

2. Hannibal Lecter

If you watched "Hannibal" when it was still on air (RIP) or you watched the delightful trilogy of movies starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, then you need to read the books they were based off of because let me tell you they are fantastic. "Red Dragon," "Silence of the Lambs"and "Hannibal" by Thomas Harris are all centered around Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist who happens to have very unique culinary tastes. He's a cannibal. He eats people. It's gross. Each book focuses on an FBI agent - either Will Graham or Clarice Starling - as they work with/against/for Lecter while solving other murders.

If I had to pick the best out of the three, I would probably go with "Silence of the Lambs" because Clarice Starling is a BAMF to end all BAMFs, but also because the plot is extremely fascinating. Although, "Hannibal" has an ending that nobody can see coming, and I appreciate a genuine twist once in a while.

Harris' writing style is also just really good. The level of detail is perfect, the attention to regional accents is a personal favorite of mine. The movies do a pretty good job of sticking to the books as well. The show "Hannibal" does go quite a bit off script, but that's because it includes a lot of cases and situations that just are not in the book. I love both versions, but the books might be better off if you aren't one for gore. The show can get pretty nasty, just saying.

As far as I know, Hannibal the Cannibal isn't based off of anyone real. Thankfully. Even still, he's one of my favorite serial killers I've ever read about, and I definitely don't feel weird saying that. Nope. Not at all.

3. Dr. H.H.Holmes

More "American Horror Story" fun! The most recently concluded season of the show
"Hotel" featured Evan Peters as a rather disturbed and eccentric hotel owner/serial killer named James Patrick March. Of course, you wouldn't know it by the name, and it's never explicitly confirmed, but James March and the Hotel Cortez are loosely based on America's first serial killer Herman Webster Mudgett, AKA Dr. H.H. Holmes.

Holmes built his hotel right around the time of the Chicago World Fair in 1893, and while he made tons of money off of various cons and scams, anything from insurance to fake cures for alcoholism, he was also carrying out a crime the likes of which America had never seen. The second floor of this "World's Fair Hotel" was designed as Holmes' personal hunting ground. Visitors of the fair would stay in his hotel only to never return home. The hotel had stairs that lead to nowhere, doors that opened to brick walls, not to mention the strange chutes hidden in rooms that lead down to the basement where all the real fun happened. Any of this sounding familiar? If it sounds like the Hotel Cortez, you wouldn't be the first to think so.

Even if Fox never confirms that March was based off of Holmes, the similarities are undeniable. If you wanna check out more about Holmes then I would recommend reading "The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America" by Erik Larson. This book spends a majority of the book talking about the fair, which I don't care about at all, but the stuff about Holmes was awesome to read. Another book, which I am about to start reading, is "Devil's Disciple: The Deadly Dr. H.H. Holmes" by Judy Miller Snavely, which is a biography just about Holmes and his gory history.

Side note: Supposedly Larson's book is going to be turned into a movie, and allegedly Leonardo DiCaprio is starring as Holmes himself. Not who I would have picked, but maybe the movie will be more murder, less landscaping for the Fair.

4. Norman Bates

Come on, everyone's heard of Norman Bates right? How many versions of "Psycho" are even out there now? There's the original movie by Alfred Hitchcock, there's the remake starring Vince Vaughn (Why him? Why?) and there's the tv series "Bates Motel" starring Freddie Highmore. There's probably more, but nothing beats the classic text, right? "Psycho" by Robert Bloch is clearly a must-read for horror fans, and I'm saying this as someone who has never seen any version of the story, nor have I read Bloch's book yet. Despite that, it's on my list, and therefore it should be on yours too.

Bates is about as creepy as you can get, and a huge part of that is because he starts off so nice. According to the Goodreads synopsis, protagonist Mary Crane thinks nothing of Bates save for maybe being a bit "odd." I'm sure in that time that was nothing to fret over, but if I was checking into some sketchy ass motel in the middle of the night and the manager of the motel was a guy like Bates, I would rather sleep in a dumpster.

At least I don't have to worry about being the kind of girl Bates would take home to meet his mother. Wink wink.

So there you have it, four fascinating serial killers to fill up your mind with horrifying thoughts and feelings, not to mention a sick and twisted sense of curiosity. I came to terms with my weirdness a long time ago. Hopefully you'll read these books and realize that you may be weird, but you're not as weird as these guys.