Book clubs already do the hard part of a case file: they read closely and argue about what the text really says. Swap the novel for a police file once and the meeting will run an hour over.
Crime novels train readers to wait for the author to explain things. A case file has no author in that sense. Nobody narrates, nobody signals which detail matters, and the documents were written by people with their own blind spots: a patrol officer in a hurry, a coroner who only cares about the body, a reporter who wants a headline. Book club members are used to asking who is telling the story and what they leave out. That is exactly the question that cracks a cold case.
The difference from a novel is that you have to read sideways. A line in a witness statement only means something next to a phone record three folders away. Suggest that members read the way they would annotate a poem: underline every time, every name and every small inconsistency. The member who usually brings sticky notes to discuss a novel will love this.
Read ahead. Send the case to members a week before, like a book. Each person reads at home, on their phone or on a printed PDF, and arrives with a written theory. The meeting is the trial: each member presents their suspect, the others cross-examine. This works best for clubs that like long discussion.
Read together. Open a room with Play with friends at the meeting. Everyone joins from their own phone, sees which documents the others have opened, and reads in the same room. This feels more like an event and suits clubs that meet for drinks as much as for books.
Replace the usual "did you like the main character?" with questions that only a case can raise. Which document did you trust least, and why? Which person in the file was most honest, and did that make them less suspicious to you? What did the original investigators want to be true? Which line did you read past the first time? The last question always produces a laugh, because everyone has one.
For readers who love character, The Overnight Sleeper is a strong pick: a death ruled a suicide in three weeks and a widow who never accepted it. It is a domestic story told through official paperwork, and the gap between the two is where the case lives. For a club that prefers atmosphere, Dead Air has a lonely overnight radio show on the Maine coast in November, which is as close to a gothic novel as a police file gets. If you want a free trial meeting, use Last Call at the Bluebird, which needs no account.
Close the meeting with a vote. In an online room everyone votes in secret and the host reveals all the answers at once; on paper, write the answers on slips and read them out. There is only one accusation per case, and submitting it closes the case, right or wrong, so the club can decide whether to submit tonight or carry the case to the next meeting first. Some clubs enjoy leaving a case open for a month.
Case files make a good palate cleanser between long novels. Many clubs alternate: a novel one month, a file the next. A single yearly Premium plan, $69.99, can cover the host's cases and PDFs for the whole year, and members can each buy a case PDF for $14.99 if they want their own copy.
Print one or two documents even if the club plays on phones; the autopsy report and the map are the most useful to have on the table. Ask one member to keep the timeline on a large sheet, and rotate that job each time you play a case so no one person controls it.