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I’ll Be Gone in the Dark

I’m a true crime fan, so I was eagerly awaiting Michelle McNamara’s book about the man who terrorized California in the 70’s and 80’s, who she dubbed the Golden State Killer. It didn’t disappoint. I listened to this book on audio during long drives for work, and it sucked me in, so much so that I would sit in my parking lot to keep listening.

This is a true story of a serial rapist and killer who terrorized CA, but has been long inactive. The book discusses dark things so I want to trigger warning for descriptions of sexual assault and violence. Originally believed to be two offenders (The East Area Rapist and The Original Night Stalker), DNA later showed that this was one offender who escalated and moved from Northern to Southern California. I have chills just typing that.

The case itself is fascinating, frustrating and complex, but the real beauty in this book is McNamara’s writing. She is sensitive to the victims (especially the female victims), never fetishizing the details of sexual assault or murder, and only going into detail when it’s relevant and necessary for the reader (example: the killer was underendowed, so much so that it’s a distinctive characteristic that might be used to identify him). Her writing flows beautifully and hypnotically, and the narrator, Gabra Zackman, does an amazing job.

McNamara died unexpectedly during the writing of this book. Her writing is so distinctive and immersive, that the sections of the book that were compiled after her death are glaringly apparent. I would listen to them impatiently, waiting for the narrator to get back to McNamara’s writing. More than anything McNamara shies away from lurid details, and focuses on the facts, and the hope, that this killer can still be caught. Its the kind of smart, sensitive true crime that, as a reader, I crave.

– Elyse

Introduction by Gillian Flynn
Afterword by Patton Oswalt

“I’ll Be Gone in the Dark will undoubtedly be stocked in the True Crime section, which is fine, but in so many ways it’s a brilliant genre-buster. It’s propulsive, can’t-stop-now reading, which makes it all too easy to ignore the clean and focused writing.

What readers need to know—what makes this book so special—is that it deals with two obsessions, one light and one dark. The Golden State Killer is the dark half; Michelle McNamara’s is the light half. It’s a journey into two minds, one sick and disordered, the other intelligent and determined. I loved this book.” —Stephen King

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.