Review: I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This one is haunting! There were times when I had to turn the light on while I read at night … McNamara was able to put me in the homes and in the footsteps of the Golden State Killer to the point that I literally felt terror at the idea of it. I didn’t want to put this book down. It’s not a perfect book – but that appears to be in large part due to it being finished after her death by others. I suspect if she’d lived to complete the book as she’d planned, it would have been all the better for it. In terms of the book serving its purpose of outlining her very personal search for this rapist and killer, it is extremely successful.

This is true crime at its best … McNamara takes the facts of the case and builds a fantastic narrative about her search for him. Meticulous in her research, this book just blew me away. She’s honest in ways that astound me. When I was about 20 pages from the end, I heard that there was an arrest made in the case (https://www.thedailybeast.com/golden-...) and I would imagine that McNamara’s work on the case (and this book) must have contributed to the fact that authorities were able to make an arrest all these years later.

Highly recommend this one but know that it’s a book that will get into your head and keep you up at night. This man terrorized California for YEARS and this book puts you in that place and time in a way that I haven’t experienced many times before.