The Less People Know About Us
The Less People Know About Us is a really compelling true crime story without any violence or murder. I read it in one sitting and I think people who are potentially interested in true crime but are leery of the violent content will really enjoy this.
When the author was a child, her parents’ identities were stolen, resulting in non-stop collections calls and financial despair. This all happened before the internet, so her parents assumed the thief had to be someone they knew in order to get access to their information. They became paranoid and isolated, instructing the author to always leave the curtains drawn and to never let a stranger in.
While I didn’t have the same childhood issues the author did, I related to her in a lot of ways. She grew up in a rural community where your reputation meant as much to your financial prospects as your credit score. In one episode her dad has their gas turned back on just because he knows the gasman and isn’t the type of person to have unpaid bills.
I also understand the isolation that comes with having parents who are working through difficulties and not being able to have friends over or enjoy the normal social life of a preteen. In my case it was related to my parents being addicts, but I remember the fear and shame that someone would come over and I couldn’t let them in. Like the author I also spent a lot of isolated time reading and bonding with my cat.
The twist in this book is truly bananas. I think I said “holy shit” out loud and woke my husband up. I won’t say anything beyond that for fear of ruining it.
Even though there’s no violent crime, the author and her family are victims of something terrible, and her adulthood quest to find out who did this to them is incredibly compelling. This book is paced like a true-crime thriller on the hunt for a murderer, and as a reader I rooted for her to get some kind of vindication after a lifetime of suffering in childhood poverty.
If you want a quick, thrilling read without violence but with high stakes, I really recommend picking this up.
– Elyse
In this powerful and “engrossing” memoir, identity theft expert Axton Betz-Hamilton tells the shocking story of how her family was destroyed by the actions of an anonymous criminal (The New York Times).
When Axton Betz-Hamilton was 11 years old, her parents both had their identities stolen. This was before the age of the Internet—authorities and banks were clueless and reluctant to help Axton’s parents.
Convinced that the thief had to be someone they knew, Axton and her parents completely cut off the outside world. As a result, Axton spent her formative years crippled by anxiety, quarantined behind the closed curtains in her childhood home. Years later, Axton discovered that she, too, had fallen prey to the identity thief.
The Less People Know About Us is a cautionary tale, but not one without hope as Axton looks back on the dysfunctional childhood that led to her desire to help this from happening to others.
Nonfiction
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Thanks!
Thank you for sharing this! It’s not my typical genre, but I think I’ll be gifting it to multiple true crime fans in my life for the holidays.
Sounds fascinating!
There’s also two great podcast episodes on the Criminal podcast hosted by Phoebe Judge : #51 “Money Tree” and #125 “The Less People Know About Us” (when the book came out). The first one includes the bit in the spoiler code. Both feature Axton Betz-Hamilton, and I found the way she talked about her academic work and how that twined with her life experience particularly fascinating.
https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-125-the-less-people-know-about-us-10-25-2019 is the second one, which links to the first one.
Pro tip: Do not repeat DO NOT read Amazon’s review of this book, unless you want the “Holy shit!!!” moment to come far too early. I can only hope that my own bad memory will wipe the knowledge before the book hits my mailbox. (I mean, seriously, Amazon? What were you thinking?!)
This has been on my to-read list for awhile now. This might be the nudge I need to finally pick it up!
This looks perfect for the long drive I’m making later this week and it was Available Now in Libby. Thanks for the recommendation!
Don’t read The NY Times review! The spoiler is in title.