🎧Spoiler Free Audiobook Review🎧

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“Make one move and you’ll be silent forever and I’ll be gone in the dark.”

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Part true crime and part memoir, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark tracks the Golden State Killer, a prolific serial rapist and murderer who stalked California residents from 1973 to 1986.

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Michelle McNamara was a woman obsessed with  this case. The book was completed and published after her death, but gives us insight into how her obsession began and how it affected her life with her family.  She is the star of this work, not the Golden State Killer. Hearing her own words and thoughts about the case made it personal. She was a talented investigator and writer. The parts of herself and her personal relationships that she shared were some of my favorite parts of the book. 

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Listening to accounts of various burglaries, rapes, and murders committed by the Golden State Killer was both fascinating and horrifying. It was interesting to hear the timeline of the crimes, to be able to follow along as the locations changed and the level of violence increased, to hear the little idiosyncrasies that occurred at different scenes. The narrator, Gabra Zackman, did an excellent job providing all of the facts and had just enough nuance in her voice when quoting the offender that it gave me goosebumps. 

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Patton Oswalt talked about Michelle, the case, her death, and their daughter toward the end of the book and it brought tears to my eyes. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is a legacy to Michelle’s passion. It is a phenomenal read/listen and I can’t recommend it enough. 

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The Golden State Killer was captured after this book came out. While I wish Michelle could have been here to see how it all played out, the final chapter, Letter to an Old Man, shows that she knew exactly what would happen. Not a perfect ending, but an ending at last. 

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“This is how it ends for you…Open the door. Show us your face. Walk into the light.”