I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer in A challenge of relative ease and merriment 2018

Apr 30, 2018 Laura rated it liked it

This is not the kind of case that particularly interests me (maybe base it on if you're into the Zodiac Killer or not--I am not; if you are, this may be one for you), but I really related to and appreciated the description of being so into a case. ...more

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May 14, 2018 Jenny rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fic, 2018-reads, murdery, disturbing-content-warning

I’ll review this in depth at some point but in the meantime I say get your hands on a copy (even mine if you like). I tried to get through it without crying and failed.

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Jul 24, 2018 Bunny McFoo rated it really liked it

Shelves: genre-nonfiction, genre-mystery, genre-memoir, 4-stars, 2018-july

In the time period when the East Area Rapist was terrifying Sacramento, my mother lived with a friend in East Sacramento. When asked, she'll tell you stories about installing flood lights, putting dowels behind sliding doors and windows, and installing multiple locks on doors. She'll tell you about the night her friend fell asleep on the couch with the slider still open and the screen door the only barricade - and how terrified mom was when she got home from work and saw that.

My paternal grandmo In the time period when the East Area Rapist was terrifying Sacramento, my mother lived with a friend in East Sacramento. When asked, she'll tell you stories about installing flood lights, putting dowels behind sliding doors and windows, and installing multiple locks on doors. She'll tell you about the night her friend fell asleep on the couch with the slider still open and the screen door the only barricade - and how terrified mom was when she got home from work and saw that.

My paternal grandmother taught high school Spanish - one of the early victims had been a student of hers. She and my grandfather lived less than two miles from the Orangevale attack.

Five years ago I had a job smack in the middle of his Arden-Arcade hunting ground. I mentioned it to a coworker who was 10 years younger than I was and not a Sacramento area native - she'd never heard of him or the case. I was completely flabbergasted that anyone who was both working and living in that area could be so ignorant of such relatively recent history.

I have lived most of my life in Auburn. While I wasn't born until a year after he was fired, it was deeply shocking to find out that this monster I'd grown up hearing about, the reason my mother was *fanatical* about all the doors and windows being secured before bedtime for my whole life, was a police officer in my hometown.

This case has been a hum in the background of my life, to one degree or another, for the whole time I've been alive. I'd been hearing about this book for a good while before it was published and bought it with every intention of reading it right away -but I put it off for one reason or anther and then they found him and it weirdly felt too raw to pick up for a few more months.

I had no idea what to expect with this book, but I found it to be compulsively readable, if disturbing as hell, and think it very accurately portrays the stifling hold that the EAR had over Sacramento for literal years and the long term damage that he did to the city and its outlying communities long after he'd moved on to the southern half of the states. I'm utterly gutted that Michelle died before he was caught, but I'm certain that she'd be ecstatic if she'd been here and would be avidly following the ongoing preparations for his eventual trial and likely move to death row.

Four stars ...more

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