2024 the best true crime books review

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(as of Nov 20, 2024 06:07:09 UTC - Details)

Instant New York Times Best Seller
An Amazon “Best Book of 2019”
A Washington Post "10 Books to Read in July"
A Los Angeles Times “Seven Highly Anticipated Books for Summer Reading”
A USA Today “20 of the Season’s Hottest New Books”
A New York Post “25 Best Beach Reads of 2019 You Need to Pre-Order Now”

"Maureen Callahan's deft reporting and stylish writing have created one of the all-time-great serial-killer books: sensitive, chilling, and completely impossible to put down." (Ada Calhoun, author of St. Marks Is Dead)

Ted Bundy. John Wayne Gacy. Jeffrey Dahmer. The names of notorious serial killers are usually well-known; they echo in the news and in public consciousness. But most people have never heard of Israel Keyes, one of the most ambitious and terrifying serial killers in modern history. The FBI considered his behavior unprecedented. Described by a prosecutor as "a force of pure evil", Keyes was a predator who struck all over the United States. He buried "kill kits" - cash, weapons, and body-disposal tools - in remote locations across the country. Over the course of 14 years, Keyes would fly to a city, rent a car, and drive thousands of miles in order to use his kits. He would break into a stranger's house, abduct his victims in broad daylight, and kill and dispose of them in mere hours. And then he would return home to Alaska, resuming life as a quiet, reliable construction worker devoted to his only daughter.

When journalist Maureen Callahan first heard about Israel Keyes in 2012, she was captivated by how a killer of this magnitude could go undetected by law enforcement for over a decade. And so began a project that consumed her for the next several years - uncovering the true story behind how the FBI ultimately caught Israel Keyes, and trying to understand what it means for a killer like Keyes to exist. A killer who left a path of monstrous, randomly committed crimes in his wake - many of which remain unsolved to this day.

American Predator is the ambitious culmination of years of interviews with key figures in law enforcement and in Keyes's life, and research uncovered from classified FBI files. Callahan takes us on a journey into the chilling, nightmarish mind of a relentless killer, and to the limitations of traditional law enforcement.

Reviewer: M
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: good read
Review: Very interesting reading. I like true crime, wish there was more information they had on him. Interesting book and great story telling.

Reviewer: Richard B. Schwartz
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Well-researched and well-written but with two deficits
Review: This is a first-rate true crime book—an account of the serial killer, Israel Keyes. Maureen Callahan has examined all of the evidence that was made available to her and written an engaging, even riveting narrative. We do not know how many victims this killer was responsible for, but his own words suggest that there may have been eleven. His home life is described in detail and his methods are depicted at length. It is not a pretty picture. Nor is it lurid or quasi-pornographic, but it is detailed.The first half of the book is the strongest, the portion in which the evidence is assembled for his most noteworthy murder. In the second half we explore his private life and listen in on the extensive discussions that investigators held with him. As often, this is a cat and mouse game in which the serial killer withholds or releases evidence in return for personal favors (coffee, candy bars, cigars and the desire for a quick execution).The problem with these kinds of stories is that a responsible reporter is bound by the facts and evidence available. (SPOILER): Israel Keyes committed suicide early on in the interrogation process, so the full story is, for now, left untold. This is not the author's 'fault' but it is the result of the author's choice of subject. Since part of the subtext of the story is the ham-fisted ways in which federal and local agencies tripped over one another and eventually suppressed evidence, the narrative remains interesting even if it is, by its very nature, frustrating.Another issue with the book is that there are no photographs included. We do not even receive a photo of the killer himself, except for his eyes on the book jacket. This is not a serious 'problem' in that many photographs are readily available on the internet, but one might have hoped that the author would have turned up some not-so-readily-available material and shared it with us.Bottom line: a carefully-researched and very well written narrative, parts of which are unputdownable. However, the nature of the facts of the case result in some reader frustrations and Viking's decision to not include photographs makes no sense whatsoever, particularly because we are dealing with exotic locations (in Alaska, e.g.) and the 'ransom' photo of the Alaska victim was notorious for a number of reasons—all described in the book, but not illustrated there.

Reviewer: TLG
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: This book confirmed all my suspicions about why LE at large tried to bury the Keyes case ....
Review: Maureen Callahan has done the public a service with this book. It reads like an expose of all the things we should be taking different LE and legal agencies to task for.***This review starts with a semi-rant about how this case was screwed up. My analysis of Maureen’s writing and the book overall is titled separately below if you want to skip the complaining. 😉 ***The Rant:If you’ve never heard of Keyes, he’s likely the most terrifying serial killer we’ve ever had, and one of the least known. Least known because authorities deliberately hid the info they had on him. If you DO know the Keyes case, and you haven’t been pissed about how it was handled, you should be, and will be, after reading this book.(Side-note: For years I’ve been complaining to anyone who’d listen, online and everywhere possible about the FBI withholding info on this case. I’ve been screaming, “Cover up!” like a conspiracy theorist. BECAUSE IT WAS. You bastards! I knew it!! Lol).Bravo, Maureen! Seriously. This book demonstrated clearly how ego and bravado screwed up a massive case, and the subsequent cover up. There were a few good agents, great periphery LE with their hearts in the right places ... and idiot “big shots” who bungled everything and made rookie mistakes with Keyes, subsequently losing valuable info.Now, this case is one I followed extensively, and was completely infuriated by the investigation. I watched all the FBI interviews (that were released anyways), multiple hours of them — and wondered what the hell a US Attorney’s office prosecutor was doing playing interrogator ... how did he think that would turn out for a trial ...?I followed Maureen Callahan’s multi-year long battle in court to get the FBI and US Attorneys office to release all the info they had on Keyes. And boy, did they fight it. And I wondered ... why? What are you hiding? Keyes is dead, there’s no investigation to protect, you won’t be prosecuting him. So why protect his info now that he’s gone? Why keep a no-publicity promise to a serial killer when there’s still friggin victims unidentified out there! (As Keyes himself said, most will just be straight missing persons cases. No real press, no muss or fuss. Just another person ghosted in a sea of missing people.) Or were they protecting themselves? Yep. ALL the agencies involved buried their mistakes. As Callahan points out, the interview where Keyes correctly predicts an underwhelming response to Samantha’s kidnapping from the outset by APD was buried for years. Until she dug it up.The public should be outraged over this case. Yet barely a blip, certainly the LE involved we’re not held accountable following Keyes death. I hope they realized how incredibly bad they effed up and have since made changes, but ...This entire case is a study in missed opportunities. Now we have a victim count we’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of, and little to no info or follow up post-Keyes suicide. To be honest, I think Keyes only gave them a count of bodies he thought might eventually be found and/or possibly connected to him. There’s more out there. And we don’t know who they are. IMO, the US Attorneys office & APD, (and possibly the FBI for allowing all the bungling), wanted this case to vanish as much as Keyes did. Obnoxiously, it did.I was excited for Maureen’s book, but thought there wasn’t much new info I would get out of it. In fact, there was quite a bit. This peeled back the investigation, a glimpse into the mindset of the investigators. Quick nod here to Texas, you guys are THE SH*T. Keyes himself was amazed at how on guard ordinary people in Texas were, how observant and well armed. Plus your LE? As I believed before, the LE people who did best in this whole mess of a case, who were most on top of it all ... were the Texas Rangers and State Police. These guys knocked it out of the park. They took vague info and turned it into an arrest. If only they could’ve run the rest of it! No, not exactly fair. Had the FBI agents who’d been tracking Keyes taken the lead on questioning and the rest ... maybe we’d have a different outcome.My analysis of Maureen’s writing and style:I saw reviewers point out they didn’t feel Maureen could extrapolate feeling and tone from transcripts. That’s true, EXCEPT, there’s video to go along with those transcripts — the tone is VERY easy to sense. Along with the power struggles and silent battles. Her interpretation of the power dynamics and missed opportunities in questioning were exactly what I got out of those tapes. So everyone else, please understand, she’s not making things up here.There were a few times I thought, “Ok, you can’t know what he was thinking here so writing this investigators innermost thoughts is a ballsy writing move.” Yet, those few occasions were logical thoughts anyone would’ve had. She used them as teaching moments, i.e. times where quotes from interrogation transcripts showed clear questioning errors on the prosecutor’s part, and another investigator would think, “That’s a mistake.” Stuff like that. Not a stretch. But I still think some leeway should be given here; Maureen mentions extensive interviews with individuals involved at the beginning of the book. So we have to give some latitude for that. I didn’t see anything in this book I thought ventured towards the fictional.Now, in the interest of fairness, Maureen had to fight the US Attorney/DOJ for years in court to get the info for this book. So it’s possible she had a resentment bias while writing in regards to Feldis screwing up this case. BUT, I thought her treatment of him was fair — bc he WAS the main screw up point in this case. Everything she wrote I agreed with.This book is extremely well written. It’s VERY in-depth, piecing together so much info on Keyes, it felt like a goldmine to someone like me who’s been frustrated by the info blackout. I read the only other book on Keyes and found it lacking. This is a result of years of fighting the government for their records, and meticulous research. Yet it’s not dry or boring. This was a fully engaging page turner. It keeps you totally immersed in the investigation and Keyes in general. Very well done, I was impressed.I read this book in one day, it was a page turner.

Reviewer: stingray
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: One of the best Books from a fan of True Crime genre.
Review: This book is in the same level of some of my favorite True Crime books: Above Suspicion by Joe Sharkey,I’ll be gone in the Dark By Michelle McNamara and True Crime Addict ,Disappearance of Maura Murray by James Renner.Callahan writing style is easy and reader friendly. The book starts with a bang and doesn’t let up. The takeaways are the law enforcement and FBI and agencies that are in charge of making sure justice is served are so incompetent and and clueless. Most of the books I’ve read on crimes the police looks awful they get it wrong more than getting it right. I know there are many professionals and efficient law enforcement-then their bosses sabotage their efforts and screw up everything. Is pretty dismal.Israel Keyes was a cockroach and I hope he rots in hell.And the crimes committed in Alaska made their law enforcement there look clueless and incompetent.. Keyes was brazen because he knew that the Alaska Police was too stupid to catch him. I don’t know but if that’s true, is pretty sad.Kudos to Callahan to bring to light To this cockroach of a man and the lives and families he destroyed. Kudos to give light to law enforcement and bureaucracy that are constantly clueless on getting justice served. I don’t have much faith in the system. Hired private detectives -to the job law enforcement won’t do and put pressure on them (law enforcement) and even threatened to go to the media to make them accountable.Read the book.

Reviewer: Joan Rovira
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: El ibro está impreso en Francia por Amazon, NO por PENGUIN RAMDOM HOUSE. Los márgenes del texto de todas las páginas del libro están fuera de los bordes. Es el segundo libro impreso por Amazon que me ocurre lo mismo, el primero me lo quede, este lo devuelvo. Etoy completamente insatisfecho. Una perdida de tiempo.

Reviewer: Kübra Shafaq-Zadah
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I’m really interested in Israel Keyes and his crimes. I’m shocked that a lot of people never heard his name before. It’s not really much known about him and he’s also not much talked of. Even though he’s as scary as a Ted Bundy which was his favourite serial killer btw. As the title already says he was very meticulous and lived a double life for decades. I saw a lot of videos made about him and his crimes (especially the Samantha Koenig case) so I knew quite a bit about him and his crimes but as a true crime fan I was super excited about this book. I needed to have it. It’s very sad that he ended his life because there are many more unidentified and unknown victims and crimes that he never talked about. A very fascinating, dark and terrifying individual. Still so many unanswered questions. I can definitely recommend this book.

Reviewer: Stella
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: As a big true crime fan, I have heard of Israel Keyes but even so, there's not a lot known about him. Many true crime fans haven't even heard of him. So I was intrigued to see if this book would give more information and it certainly does. It gives a good insight into him but you're still left feeling like you don't really know anything. He's still so much of an enigma which makes him seem even creepier. There's a lot of frustration too while reading this book, the way the jail operated and, in particular, Feldis. My word people should've lost their jobs over how they handled Israel. It's definitely worth a read but expect to be left feeling exasperated at the end.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: The writer has done a very good job. How long will monsters like Israel Keyes continue to plague the world?

Reviewer: Tom8osauce
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I don't normally read or enjoy true crime novels, but this one was fantastic! Keyes was a terrifying subject because his victims varied so much, it really could have been anyone. He was arrested with no physical evidence tying him to the crime, and it was just amazing that they were able to get him to confess. I can't believe how everything was handled, and everyone involved was truly lucky that he confessed, because there were many points during the interrogations where things have gone completely sideways. I can't believe that he was able to escape from his handcuffs using only cling wrap and lead from pencils! The way he died in his cell is quite suspect, and I really wonder what parts of the story we don't know.