This is a gripping, fear inducing true crime masterpiece.  You’ll double check the locks on your doors and be glad that DNA technology has greatly improved since the Golden State Killer rocked the nerves of Californians.  

 

Michelle McNamara was obsessed with The Golden State Killer.  For more than a decade, he terrorized portions of California as he raped and murdered victim after victim.  As a gifted journalist who experienced this same type of terror as a 14 year old whose neighbor was brutally murdered, Michelle could not let the Golden State Killer’s case rest.  

 

This book reads like a mash up of memoir and true crime.  We get to know McNamara as she honestly reveals how her mania with this case impacts her family life (and ultimately her untimely death).    While her personal life might have suffered, this book did not.  It is meticulously researched and superbly written in an engrossing and atmospheric prose. 

 

This book is everything you want in nonfiction.  Thankfully, the Golden State Killer has been brought to justice in time since McNamara’s death and the publication of this book.