Behold the Monster

Starred review from April 24, 2023
Bestseller Lauren (Some Girls) recounts the murders of Samuel Little, America’s most prolific serial killer, in this wildly original blend of narrative nonfiction and true crime reporting. At the time of publication, officials had confirmed 60 of Little’s 93 jailhouse confessions, many of them told for the first time to Lauren, whose notes helped a national task force led by LAPD, FBI, and Texas Ranger officers close many of the cold cases. Attempting to give voice to Little’s victims, Lauren reconstructs their final hours based on her interviews with the killer, whom she first met after writing to him while he was imprisoned in the late 2010s in pursuit of a more traditional feature story. Interspersed between those harrowing episodes, Lauren recounts her time researching and interviewing Little before his death in 2020, at which point the killer named her his next of kin, giving her possession of his ashes and the few trinkets he still held onto. In vivid prose (“In Jungian terms, Sam wasn’t all shadow, but his shadow was definitely in the driver’s seat”), Lauren convincingly sketches Little, his victims, his relatives, and the lawmen and women who dedicated their lives to catching him. True crime fans will find this a unique and disturbing thrill ride. Agent: Charlie Fusco, TGC Worldwide.

May 15, 2023
Lauren reflects on her relationship with a serial killer. Samuel Little confessed to killing 93 women between 1970 and 2005. The FBI has confirmed his involvement in at least 60 of these murders, making Little the most prolific known serial killer in U.S. history. Before Little died in a Los Angeles prison in 2020, Lauren, the author of the memoirs Everything You Ever Wanted and Some Girls, exchanged letters with him and, ultimately, conducted hundreds of hours of face-to-face interviews over the course of a few years. This book is an amalgam of scenes from the author's relationship with Little, records of her interactions with law enforcement, vignettes from her travels to understand the murderer and his victims, a memoir of this time in her life, and imagined narratives about the women Little killed. Attempting to give Little's victims a voice through fiction makes emotional sense, and it might make artistic sense in a different kind of narrative. However, this is a nonfiction book, and this choice casts a cloud of confusion over the entire text. Re-creating important moments and filling the gaps between the known and the unknown with educated guesses is an important skill for nonfiction writers, but Lauren doesn't make it easy for readers to understand when she's quoting someone directly or when she's making a guess at what they might have said. It's not always clear when she's relating something she knows because she was there or because she has solid documentary evidence--or, instead, cobbling together a scene from bits and pieces of information she's gathered. The lack of any obvious chronological throughline also makes this book difficult to comprehend and appreciate. Perhaps the material worked better in Confronting a Serial Killer, a docuseries Lauren hosted on the Starz network. The book includes an introduction by Michael Connelly. A true-crime grab bag.

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June 1, 2023

Journalist Lauren (Everything You Ever Wanted) has written a m�lange of fact and imagined truth in this true-crime book is about Samuel Little, known as America's top serial killer, who choked his victims and whose murdered approximately 90 women over six decades. Lauren first learned of Little by asking legendary LAPD cold case detective Mitzi Roberts which case she was proudest to have solved; at this point, Little was now in his late seventies and ailing in a California prison. In hundreds of hours of interviews, he told Lauren information that he had never shared with law enforcement. Lauren also embedded herself with detectives seeking to use DNA to solve the murders of marginalized women. The book devotes chapters to Little's victims, imagining how they died, along with excerpts from his California trials, which sealed his fate. Lauren seeks to honor the victims by imagining their lives and printing their photos. VERDICT Fans of true crime will relish this book. A good read-alike is I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara.--Harry Charles

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