The Mod Woman May Book Club Pick
I told you in my last post 5 Great Books To Read This Spring that one (or more) of the books on that list would probably find their way into the book club. I have a confession. I started reading this book last week. Because I couldn't wait! It was in the news when the Golden State Killer was arrested after over 30 years. The writer and an amateur detective (it feels wrong calling her that because her "amateur" skills were top notch) who coined the name "Golden State Killer" and kept the case in the news with not only her posts on her blog but this book is the last Michelle McNamara. She died in 2016 before the book could be published at the age of 46. She left behind a 6 year-old daughter and her husband, comedian Patton Oswalt. Oswalt took up the mantle of her book, getting it publishes and even going on a book tour to promote it. I started this book last week and I haven't been able to put it down. If you are not a true crime person then read it for McNamara's engaging ability to tell a good story. And if you are a true crime fan...read to for McNamara's ability to tell a good story and for one of the most disturbing true crimes to be written about in years. I have included the synopsis for the book below. Let's get reading!
A masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer—the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California for over a decade—from Michelle McNamara, the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case.
"You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark."
For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.
Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.
At the time of the crimes, the Golden State Killer was between the ages of eighteen and thirty, Caucasian, and athletic—capable of vaulting tall fences. He always wore a mask. After choosing a victim—he favored suburban couples—he often entered their home when no one was there, studying family pictures, mastering the layout. He attacked while they slept, using a flashlight to awaken and blind them. Though they could not recognize him, his victims recalled his voice: a guttural whisper through clenched teeth, abrupt and threatening.
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Framed by an introduction by Gillian Flynn and an afterword by her husband, Patton Oswalt, the book was completed by Michelle’s lead researcher and a close colleague. Utterly original and compelling, it is destined to become a true crime classic—and may at last unmask the Golden State Killer.
