Reviews with content warning for Confinement - I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer

This is the story of a true crime junkie becoming obsessed with a serial rapist and murderer. To the point that she worked with detective from the cases, knew all the sordid details, and made several attempts at naming a suspect. She died before she could finish her book or catch the guy, so the author put together her story.

This book kind of solidifies my opinion about weird true crime junkies. Look man, I get it. It's morbidly interesting and makes you feel a little adrenaline. It's all so mysterious and violent that it feels separate from real life. I've been there, I've listened to true crime podcasts and watched the youtube videos. But at some point you have to realize that this is weird and those events truly happened to someone and that you, a random person, is not the "key to the case". You're just consuming trauma-porn of the worst day of someone's life. Like if you can't be self aware, then wtf. This lady let it take over her entire life.

I thought the book was well written and I thought the case was well laid out, thought I wish we hadn't focused on the lady obsessed with this guy rather than the victims. I feel like we really skipped over a lot of women, like they were just pins on a map. I'd never heard of this guy before and I hate to think that all those women had to live through such a horrid experience. Their safety had to be shattered so thoroughly. And I can't imagine you being married to one of those women and having to see someone you love so much be hurt like that. It's horrible.

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kkalicky94's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative mysterious relaxing sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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chloenk_1011's review against another edition

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4.5

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kingrosereads's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

4.5

True crime book depicting the crimes and investigation of the Golden State Killer that terrorized Californians from San Francisco to Los Angelos from 1976 to 1986. At the time the book was published, these crimes were unsolved.

This book was also a memoir of author, Michelle McNamara, who died in the pursuit of uncovering GSK’s identity. McNamara died in 2016 before her book was completed and before the Golden State Killer, Joseph DeAngelo, was arrested in 2018. Researcher, Paul Haynes, and investigative journalist, Billy Jensen, finished the book for McNamara with an afterword from her husband, Patton Oswalt, and updated news articles about the capture and arrest of Joseph DeAngelo.

McNamara coined his moniker, Golden State Killer. Originally, he was known as the East Area Rapist (EAR) when he raped over 50 people, and then would become known as the Original Night Stalker (ONS) when he killed over a dozen people. It’s 21st century technology that connected the rapes of EAR with the murders of ONS. There wasn’t two offenders, just one, and he’d become known as EAR-ONS until McNamara renames him.

I truly loved this book, and I know that’s a weird thing to say, but it was genuinely good, addictive even. I watched the HBO docuseries two years ago and it very subtly creeped me out. It wasn’t until I tried to sleep that night that I realized how anxious I was. I kept getting up to check the door was locked without thinking why I had the urge to do so. The same with this book. There were a couple of nights I triple checked the locks or thought I heard a noise. And it’s not just the crimes of GSK that have me unsettled, and trust me, the crimes are truly at a level 100 on the creep factor, but it’s the way McNamara writes the book. The several times she addresses the killer himself, a man without a face for her, just had the hairs on my neck standing up. I’ve listened to a few true crime podcasts on this case and even discussed it in my undergrad studies, none of those elicited this response. It’s all McNamara and her incredible ability to tell a story.

It was already creepy as it was, but I wished it contained more of what he did before he attacked these people and also highlight the survivors. The main focus was on the investigation and the investigators which I thought was a great take instead of hyper-focusing on the crimes themselves. It feels respectful to the victims and the survivors while educating the public on the events and investigation, while getting across the urgency to help find this killer.

I also think the memoir chapters added something special to this book. It helped me to connect to McNamara and even the other investigators (law enforcement and civilian) on the case.

It was hard to put down. Completely riveting and an excellent example of true crime reporting.

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jlautry's review against another edition

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dark informative sad slow-paced

4.5

Although she died 2 years before the his capture, her work contributed to the capture of the Golden State Killer. Her ability to tell a captivating story with true events and facts is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in a non-fiction piece. The parts she completed and edited read like a fiction crime novel. Paul Haynes, Billy Jenson, and her husband, Patton Oswalt, pieced together completed chapters with her notes and recordings to put together this book. You can tell instantly which of her chapters were completed before she died, versus what they pieced together from drafts, notes, and recordings. As good of writers as I’m sure they are, they just could not match her storytelling ability. I am a big consumer of true-crime media, and the stories generally do not scare me. However, many parts of this book terrified me. I felt like I was in the room with the victims or watching him from a neighbor’s backyard. It takes a really special author to bring a narrative to life like this. Here’s an example:

“[The victims] weren't thinking of their neighbors, but he was. Part of the thrill of the game for him, I believe, was a kind of connect-the-dots puzzle he played with people. He stole two packs of Winston cigarettes from the first victim, for instance, and left them outside the fourth victim's house. Junk jewelry stolen from a neighbor two weeks earlier was left at the fifth victim's house. Victim twenty-one lived within shouting distance of a water treatment plant; a worker there who lived eight miles away became the next victim. Pills or bullets stolen from a victim would later be found in a neighbor's yard. Some victims shared surnames or jobs.

It was a power play, a signal of ubiquity. I am both nowhere and everywhere. You may not think you have something in common with your neighbor, but you do: me. I'm the barely spotted

presence, the dark haired, blond-haired, stocky, slight, seen from the back, glimpsed in half light thread that will continue to connect you even as you fail to look out for each other.”

You will not find a better researched, more thorough compilation of research done on the GSK than this book. She literally worked herself to death researching this case to try to find justice for his 183+ victims. Parts of this book were not as good as others. I think Paul and Billy had a fine line to walk between maintaining the originality of her work, and creating a publishable piece. There is a section consisting of a transcript of conversations between Michelle and Paul Holes. I skipped most of the 2nd half of that section because it got a little boring for me. But, I did see the docuseries that was released in 2020 that included most of these conversations.

My favorite part of the book is the epilogue Michelle wrote. It is a haunting letter written directly to the, then unknown, Joseph DeAngelo. Here’s how that letter ends:

“One day soon, you’ll hear a car pull up to your curb, an engine cut out. You'll hear footsteps coming up your front walk. Like they did for Edward Wayne Edwards, twenty-nine years after he

killed Timothy Hack and Kelly Drew in Sullivan, Wisconsin. Like they did for Kenneth Lee Hicks, thirty years after he killed Lori Billingsley in Aloha, Oregon.

The doorbell rings.

No side gates are left open. You're long past leaping over a fence. Take one of your hyper, gulping breaths. Clench your teeth. Inch timidly toward the insistent bell.

This is how it ends for you.

‘You'll be silent forever, and I'll be gone in the dark,’ you threatened a victim once.

Open the door. Show us your face.

Walk into the light.”

--MICHELLE MCNAMARA

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sinrh's review

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challenging dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

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annabunce's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-paced

4.0

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