I'll Be Gone in the Dark

I'll Be Gone in the Dark

By Michelle McNamara
Published: Harper, 2018
Pages: 352
Genre: True Crime, Non-Fiction
Check it out on Amazon

The unidentified murderer is always twisting a doorknob behind a door that never opens. But his power evaporates the moment we know him. We learn his banal secrets. We watch as he's led, shackled and sweaty, into a brightly lit courtroom as someone seated several feet higher peers down unsmiling, raps a gravel, and speaks, at long last, every syllable of his birth name.

I'll Be Gone in the Dark is essentially the story of the Golden State Killer, who raped over 43 women and eventually moved to raping then murdering his victims throughout a 10 year period, and crime true writer Michelle McNamara who never got to follow through with her story due to her untimely death.

McNamara chronicles the Golden State Killer's misconduct while interweaving details of her obsessive search for the killer's identity. I'll Be Gone in the Dark is engaging. McNamara's prose has a nice style to it that made true crime the perfect genre for her. It's obvious the long hours and endless efforts that went into her research; the amount of detail in the novel is massive, but it's also impressive how McNamara manages to write these details in a concise manner so readers are not easily confused. Her passion is infectious and jumps out of the pages.

Unfortunately,  McNamara died in her sleep on April 21, 2016; however, her efforts live on as just over two years after her death and a few months following the book's release, authorities found and arrested Joseph James DeAngelo for the crime. I hope to one day read a detailed account of his arrest. I'm glad this story was able to receive an ending after all.

RATING (out of five puppies):