Author: Erin Vanderhoof / Source: Vanities
As early as 2013, writer Michelle McNamara was concerned that her book, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, about a serial murderer in California, might have an unsatisfying ending. “If the challenge here, or perceived weakness, is that the unsolved aspect will leave readers unfulfilled, why not turn that on its head and use it as a strength?
” she wrote in an e-mail to her editor, which was later reproduced in the book. In other words, she was suggesting that I’ll Be Gone in the Dark might prompt her readers to become detectives themselves.When the book was released in February, it happened. McNamara died suddenly in 2016, leaving behind an unfinished manuscript, which her husband, actor Patton Oswalt, salvaged and pushed toward publication. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, about the criminal McNamara dubbed the Golden State Killer, had been on The New York Times best-sellers list for eight weeks when, on April 25, the Orange County sheriff finally arrested a suspect. Seventy-two-year-old Sacramento resident Joseph James DeAngelo was charged with six of the crimes McNamara had investigated and attributed to the Golden State Killer—an incredible ending to a 40-year investigation, and a heart-wrenching coda for McNamara’s friends and fans.
Thus far law enforcement has only acknowledged that DeAngelo was found through a DNA match; when Sacramento sheriff Scott Jones was asked about McNamara’s book on Wednesday, he only said, “It kept interest and tips coming in.”
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But Oswalt, who had promoted her book often on social media, said Wednesday that he believes McNamara isn’t getting enough credit.
“Even though the cops are never going to say it, your book helped get this thing closed,” he said in an Instagram video, posted just before an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers.Rob Lowe was one of
McNamara started her blog, True Crime Diary, in 2006, and was an avid participant in true-crime forums. Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl, was one constant reader. “Both of us were moms who spend unwholesome amounts of time looking under rocks at the dark side of humanity,” she wrote in her introduction to I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. “Michelle’s doggedness in pursuing this case was astounding.”
She received an M.F.A. in fiction from the University of Minnesota, a background that shows in the book—she writes with flourish and attention to suspense, and the book garnered comparisons to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood in New York magazine and
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