American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century by Maureen Callahan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Meg’s advice for October:
Read.
This.
Book.
Me upon completion:
You want to feel this way in Spooktober, don’t you???
Quite honestly, this was by far the most disturbing book I read all month.
American Predator is a nonfiction account of the capture and subsequent investigation of serial killer, Israel Keyes. Fortunately for the reader, this is much more than a droll portrayal of one monster’s heinous crimes. This is a compelling recounting of the investigation of his case, beginning with his final kill and going backward through time.
I thought this was a clever formatting choice by the author. It made the story seem more like you were part of the investigation versus starting at the beginning of his life and moving forward that way.
Reading about Israel was completely disturbing for me. Here was a man, a contemporary of mine, born in the same year, and to walk through his crimes was shocking. The fact that he traveled extensively in the state where I was living at the time was the icing on the cake.
His level of arrogance yet ability to plan and to leave no evidence was bone-chilling. He used his knowledge of surveillance and technology to constantly fly under the radar. One would think his arrogance could possibly make him slip up but it never really did until the final case when it seems things were beginning to unravel a bit.
Making the case even more disturbing was the seemingly random selection of his victims. There’s so much more but I don’t want to give anything away.
In short, read this book.