mrs_mander_reads
Written on Oct 14, 2019
** I listened to the audio, which is fantastic. **
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** SOON TO BE A MAJOR NEW DOCUMENTARY SERIES FROM HBO AND SKY **
WINNER OF THE GOOD READS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2018
THE NEW YORK TIMES #1 BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2018
The masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer - the serial rapist turned murderer who terrorised California for over a decade - from the late Michelle McNamara.
I'll Be Gone in the Dark offers a unique snapshot of suburban West Coast America in the 1980s, and a chilling account of the wreckage left behind by a criminal mastermind. It is also a portrait of one woman's obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth, three decades later, in spite of the personal cost.
Updated with material which takes in the extraordinary events that followed its initial publication, Michelle McNamara's first and last book is a contemporary classic - humane, haunting and heroic.
Michelle’s doggedness in pursuing this case was astounding. In a typical instance, she tracked down a pair of cuff links that had been stolen from a Stockton crime scene in 1977 on the website of a vintage store in Oregon. But she didn’t do just this; she could also tell you that “boys’ names beginning in N were relatively rare, appearing only once in the top one hundred names of the 1930s and ’40s, when the original owner of the cuff links was likely born.” Mind you, this isn’t even a clue leading to the killer; it’s a clue leading to the cuff links the killer stole. This dedication to particulars was typical. Writes Michelle: “I once spent an afternoon tracking down every detail I could about a member of the 1972 Rio Americano High School water polo team because in the yearbook photo, he appeared lean and to have big calves” — a possible trait of the Golden State Killer.
Michelle did a great job of showing the terror of the people in California when this was going on. She give just enough details to really let you know how bad things are, without getting grumesome or crude with the murders and rapes. You could really feel her compassion for the victims and even the law enforcement officers who lived through this man’s reign of terror.