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

4.0

Even though at the time this book was published, the mystery had not yet been solved (the killer not yet caught), it was still a breathtaking work of research. Michelle wove all of the evidence together beautifully. As soon as I finished reading, I went online to research what ended up happening: how they caught the killer and what was revealed about him after. Surprisingly, Michelle got a lot of the facts right, and even some of her speculation, both about the killer himself and the way in which to catch him, ended up proving correct and successful. That is what astounded me the most. She was able to make this not seem like one giant infodump. It had a plot to it, full of all these different stories put together to make a whole. She mastered the art of crime writing in this. I am very sad she did not get to see it to full completion--both her book and the catching of the killer. What they were able to piece together of the rest of her notes made me feel unfulfilled, but there was nothing else to do. At best, it proves no one could write the story as well as Michelle.