I didn’t know what I was getting into with I’ll be Gone in the Dark. My impression was that it was a documentary book about a serial killer, the Golden State Killer, and how he eluded the investigators time and time again until present where his case still has not been resolved. I was very surprised and happy to find that was not what I was getting into at all.
I love the true crime stuff, but I’ve become a little jaded in that I almost expect the killers to be held up on this pedestal, to be made figures of wonder and awe to idolize for their cunning and their ruthlessness. This book does not do that. Instead, the focus is largely on the victims and the events that happened told through a stunning narrative lens that brings you much more into the scene of the attack and focuses squarely on the victims rather than the killer.
McNamara does a fantastic job of painting the picture of these victims and their encounters with the killer, and of how their lives are rocked by the attacks. The people who find the bodies, the people who are in the house at the time of the attacks, everything is entered largely on the people whose stories we know. It’s respectful and keeps your attention where we know the story as opposed to speculating too much on what we don’t.
Even when she follows the investigation, it largely focuses on what the impact of the investigation was on the people instead of idolizing the killer.1 He’s treated as a puzzle that people are coming together to solve, as more of a hypothetical and she draws a line between what we know and what is only speculation. There’s no real dancing up to a line to make him seem like more than he really is, he is just a thing that exists, a puzzle to solve and no one has yet. Nothing more, nothing less.
McNamara died before the end of this book and you can definitely tell where her writing stops and other people have stepped in. There’s something more human and lively about how she talks about the murders and attacks that is lost when she is. But it’s still a fantastic read throughout, and if this is the start of thing you like then I would definitely recommend checking it out.
- This is a problem with true crime and I don’t know if I’m making myself clear here [↩]