dianapharah 's review for:

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

3.0

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”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.

3.5.

I loved McNamara’s writing, especially her closing letter to an old man. She truly humanized a case that others might have told solely from an analytical, tactical perspective that would risk losing sense of the victims, bereaved, and manic investigators along the way. The minute details she included in setting a scene gave intimate insight to the reader that some might find unsettling and invasive. But I found it all the more necessary, for those mundane bits of information portrayed the victims as not just another Jane Doe or number in this monster’s string of crimes, but as a whole, utterly real person. This type of connection to the text is what I loved most.

That leads into why I did not particularly like the timeline of the book. We jump around a lot rather than moving chronologically, and I found this approach made me forget some of the victims mentioned earlier in the novel when we plunge head first into a case. And I did not want to have their names and specifies of their cases merge as his methodical spree continued. It has caused me to do a lot of my own research, not so much as on the man behind the ski mask, but on the victims’ stories.

I also find that I really was invested in McNamara herself, as well as the manic behavior of those pursuing this shrouded madman for decades on end. The level of obsession required to dedicate your life to the very end to a task you feel so called to see through, regardless of ruined marriages, missed birthdays, unattended sporting events, what have you, resonated with me in some way. There lies a Sherlock within all of us if the right amount of clues are present.

Overall, I cared more about the vast array of people from all walks of life whose lives were uprooted by this one man than reading about the man himself. Yes, those parts were eerie and intriguing all the same, pondering the headspace and thought process of one of the most prolific offenders in US history, but the exploration of everyone else tied to the case is the strongest part of the book, in my opinion.

As McNamara reiterates most, knowing his name is what is most important. When you know his name, he loses power in anonymity. Joseph DeAngelo. Found through the advancement of genealogy. May he rot.