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Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery Paperback – May 6, 2014
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Soon to be a Netflix film
One of Slate’s Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years
A literary account of the lives and presumed serial killings of five “Craigslist” prostitutes, whose bodies were found on the same Long Island beach in 2010. Based on the New York Magazine cover story.
Shannan wanted acceptance. Maureen wanted a solution. Megan wanted love. Melissa wanted adventure. Amber wanted to be saved.
Over the course of three years, each of these young women vanished without a trace: Maureen in 2007, Melissa and Megan in 2009, and Amber and Shannan in 2010. All but one of their bodies was discovered on Gilgo Beach, Long Island, an unsettled, overgrown seven-mile stretch of shoreline on the string of barrier islands along South Oyster Bay.
Sharing the same profile—all were in their twenties, all but one was under five feet tall, and all were prostitutes who advertised on Craigslist—the police concluded they were all the victims of one murderer, the Long Island serial killer—the most skillful and accomplished serial killer in New York since the “Son of Sam,” David Berkowitz. But as intrepid young reporter Robert Kolker discovered, the truth about these women went far deeper than common assumptions. The victims weren’t outcasts; they weren’t kidnapped or enslaved. All came from a slice of America ignored by politicians and the media: the poor, often rural and white parts of the country hit hard by economics, where limited opportunities force people to make hard choices—choices that lead them to places like Gilgo Beach.
Working closely with the women’s families, Lost Girls tells the stories of their deaths and their lives, offering a searing portrait of crime and circumstance that goes to the heart of modern America itself.
- Print length416 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Perennial
- Publication dateMay 6, 2014
- Dimensions5.31 x 0.94 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100062183656
- ISBN-13978-0062183651
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Through extensive interviews with the victims’ families and friends, Kolker creates compassionate portraits of the murdered young women, and uncovers the forces that drove them from their respective home towns into risky, but lucrative, careers as prostitutes in a digital age.” ( New Yorker )
“Captivating.” (Boston Globe)
“Robert Kolker unflinchingly probes the 21st-century innovations that facilitated these crimes… ...An important examination of the socioeconomic and cultural forces that can shape a woman’s entry into prostitution.” (Kirkus Reviews)
“Beautifully and provocatively written.... [Lost Girls] will make all but the hardest-hearted empathetic. Add a baffling whodunit that remains, as the subtitle indicates, unsolved, and you have a captivating true crime narrative that’s sure to win new converts and please longtime fans of the genre.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review))
“Robert Kolker’s LOST GIRLS is reportage at the highest level; it’s miss-your-bedtime storytelling… It’s a wonder.” (Darin Strauss, author of Half A Life)
“Lost Girls is a marvelous book, taking a complicated, trying story and making it compulsively readable. Kolker is an outstanding reporter and a sensitive narrator who does justice to a horrible tragedy by paying exactly the kind of attention that no one else did, or would.” (Nick Reding, author of Methland)
“The absence of the killer is the making of this book, a constraint that allows it to become extraordinary…humane and imaginative…[Kolker] shows the dented magnificence and universal sorrow within ordinary lives, and makes you realize how much more they are worth.” ( Laura Miller, Salon )
“Kolker indulges in zero preaching and very little sociology; his is the lens of a classic police reporter. And often in Lost Girls, the facts are eloquent in themselves.” (Newsday)
“Some true crime books are exploitative…others grasp at serious literature. Robert Kolker’s new book falls into the latter category.” (New York Observer)
“Readers expecting an SVU-style true-crime story will be disappointed. But through detailed profiles of the victims themselves, Kolker has written a more provocative book―a book that is as much about class and economic pressures as it is about sex work and murder.” ( The Daily Beast )
“Meticulously reported and beautifully written, Robert Kolker’s Lost Girls is a haunting and powerful crime story that gives voice to those who can no longer be heard. It is a story that you will not be able to forget.” (David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon)
“A gothic whodunit for the Internet age…nearly unputdownable…[LOST GIRLS is] a horrific, cautionary tale that makes for a very different kind of beach read…Kolker expertly chronicles the sad cycle of poor, uneducated white women faced with lots of kids and few resources.” (Mimi Swartz, New York Times Book Review)
“Rich, tragic...monumental...true-crime reporting at its best.” (Washington Post)
“Engrossing...a car-crash of a book...By humanizing the women, Mr. Kolker has produced a subtle indictment of the sex trade.” ( Nina Burleigh, New York Observer )
“A heart-chilling non-fiction tour-de-force...terrifying and intensely reported.” ( Complex Magazine )
“A rare gem of a book that not only tells a riveting story but illuminates something about a slice of America and gets into a lot of very deep issues. Its really great on every front.” ( Slate, DoubleX )
“Riveting and often heartbreaking...a lashing critique of how society, and the police, let these young women down.” (New York Times)
“Immensely evocative...we are left with is a visceral understanding of the lives of the victims and why they should have mattered more.” ( New York Daily News )
“Terrific...vivid and moving...Grade: A-” ( Entertainment Weekly )
“So masterful.” ( Megan Abbott, author of Dare Me , via Twitter )
“By learning the intimate details of the women’s lives, seeing them as humans rather than victims, we see our similarities…Lost Girls is possibly the realest, fullest picture of what is happening with sex work in the US right now.” (The Guardian (UK))
“Kolker does not hold back in addressing the fact that there was dysfunction in these women’s lives. They were drug addicts and teenage mothers and petty criminals. They suffered. But he can also see that within those circumstances they had moments of strength and self-assurance. ” (Barnes & Noble Review )
“Lost Girls is partly unsolved mystery...[partly]the intimate story of the five women… [and] a case study in the profound impact of the Internet, and particularly Craigslist, on the business of buying and selling sex.” (National Post (Canada))
From the Back Cover
A Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of 2013
Award-winning investigative reporter Robert Kolker delivers a humanizing account of the true-life search for a serial killer still at large on Long Island, and presents the first detailed look at the shadow world of online escorts, where making a living is easier than ever and the dangers remain all too real. A triumph of reporting, a riveting narrative, and "a lashing critique of how society and the police let five young women down" (Dwight Garner, New York Times), Lost Girls is a portrait of unsolved murders in an idyllic part of America, of the underside of the Internet, and of the secrets we keep without admitting to ourselves that we keep them.
About the Author
Robert Kolker is the New York Times bestselling author of Lost Girls, named one of the New York Times 100 Notable Books and one of Publishers Weekly Top Ten Books of 2013. As a journalist, his work has appeared in New York magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, the New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, O, and Men's Journal. He is a National Magazine Award finalist and a recipient of the Harry Frank Guggenheim 2011 Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (May 6, 2014)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 416 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062183656
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062183651
- Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.94 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #584,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #459 in Child Abuse (Books)
- #1,313 in Serial Killers True Accounts
- #10,557 in Sociology (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Robert Kolker is the author of Hidden Valley Road, an instant #1 New York Times best-seller and selection of Oprah's Book Club that was named a Top Ten Book of the Year by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Slate; one of the year’s best by NPR, the Boston Globe, the New York Post, and Amazon; the #1 book of the year by People; and one of President Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2020. His previous work includes Lost Girls, also a New York Times best-seller and New York Times Notable Book, and one of Slate’s best nonfiction books of the quarter century. He is a National Magazine Award finalist whose journalism has appeared in New York magazine, the New York Times Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, Wired, O, the Oprah Magazine, and The Marshall Project.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the story interesting and haunting. They describe the book as a good read and compulsively readable. Readers also find the information fascinating, in-depth, and thought-provoking. However, some find the pacing repetitive and unsatisfying. They say the characters are hard to follow and their names are not individually enough. Opinions are mixed on the writing quality, with some finding it well-written and detailed, while others say it's confusing and hard to follow at times.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the story haunting, interesting, and suspenseful. They say it's a good true crime read that leaves them no closer to a conclusion. Readers also mention the author did a good job humanizing the victims.
"...with a gentle decency and grace, compassion, and genuine curiosity...." Read more
"...I'm not usually a true-crime fan, but this story seemed quite gripping, and I felt sorry for these five women whose lives were almost nonexistent..." Read more
"...Mr. Kolker tells a good story, writing of the lives of these young women and their families before and after their disappearances...." Read more
"...I still enjoyed this book because it gives faces and lives to these victims...." Read more
Customers find the book interesting, well-written, and compulsively readable. They say it documents the lives of non-picture-perfect girls. Readers also say the story is compelling and enjoyable.
"...I couldn’t put it down; it was some of the best non-fiction writing I’ve ever read...." Read more
"...As books go, this one is well constructed, readable, and all the commas are in the right place. But It's a downer...." Read more
"...Lost Girls is compulsively readable. The only thing I would have liked to see is the author dig into the psychology of the killer...." Read more
"This book was good in the beginning...." Read more
Customers find the information in the book fascinating, informative, and well-researched. They say it poses thought-provoking questions about society and how we view people. Readers also mention the book teaches valuable life lessons and moves them deeply.
"...The book had moved me so deeply, engaged me so thoroughly, and enraged me so fiercely on behalf of the victims and their families, that it felt like..." Read more
"...Also, the timeline of events is clearly explained (it can get confusing with bodies being found over a span of decades in various different areas),..." Read more
"...This book is well written and researched but the subject matter is bleak. The title tells you going in the case is unsolved...." Read more
"...Second, the lack of pictures is a serious drawback, if only because it makes it that much harder to keep the women straight...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the writing quality of the book. Some mention it's well-written, detailed, and empathetic. However, others say it's confusing, hard to follow at times, and difficult to read.
"...I'm giving this book three stars because a lot of it was very well-written, but there were enormous holes in the narrative...." Read more
"...The circumstances surrounding Shannan’s death are creepy and confusing, but it’s harder for me, after falling down the rabbit hole of the LISK story..." Read more
"...The book was excellent in showing the ease with which such a killer can gain access to victims in our modern age...." Read more
"...The reason for the 4-star is because it does get a little confusing to tell the difference between the girls...." Read more
Customers find the book sympathetic, heartfelt, and poignant. They say it's personal and never sentimental or sensationalistic. However, some readers find the subject matter dark and dreary.
"...job here— he treats each woman (and her family) with a gentle decency and grace, compassion, and genuine curiosity...." Read more
"...Some are genuinely sympathetic, but most are alternately self-pitying, self-aggrandizing, and self-deceptive...." Read more
"...I was engrossed in the details of this book. It really hit me emotionally. It brought out horror, pity, righteous anger, bafflement, and sorrow...." Read more
"...This book is well written and researched but the subject matter is bleak. The title tells you going in the case is unsolved...." Read more
Customers find the pacing of the book repetitive at times. They say it's boring, unsatisfying, and confusing to keep each story straight. Readers also mention that the book has too many different stories jumbled together and is ultimately dull.
"...But what came across to me most strongly was how pathetic and sad and similar these women's lives were...." Read more
"...was better than the first, but there was something that just kept taking me out of it. It was easy to put it down after each chapter...." Read more
"...read about such events.......this will be jarringly, sadly, discouragingly familiar." Read more
"...The book is paced out well and does not grow wearisome, as some non - fiction can. I was engrossed in the details of this book...." Read more
Customers find the character development in the book hard to follow. They mention the names are not individually individual enough to keep track of them. Readers also mention the lack of humanity and indifference towards these young girls.
"...The lack of both humanity and, indifference towards these young girls is exactly the reason they go unnoticed...." Read more
"...There are a lot of names and details and the story jumps around a lot which made it hard to follow at times...." Read more
"...In the meanwhile it was hard to keep all the characters (women) straight, with their multiple internet names, family members like sisters and..." Read more
"...that this book made each of these girls a real person and gave us a story of their lives. Were they perfect? Of course not...." Read more
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By bizarre happenstance, I was a few pages from the end of the book when the news broke that they finally arrested the suspected killer (July 14th 2023). I burst into tears at the news, genuinely surprising myself. The book had moved me so deeply, engaged me so thoroughly, and enraged me so fiercely on behalf of the victims and their families, that it felt like a true miracle to see this monster finally found and arrested. God rest the souls of these women, their families who are still alive and those who have passed on without ever knowing what happened, and God bless Kolker for shining a light (beautifully) on this horrific case.
Mr. Kolker obviously did a lot of work in tracking down the details of these women's pasts and how their bodies came to be found in marshland on a forgotten barrier island. The first half of the book talks about their childhoods, mostly about how awful they were. Other commentators have noted how hard it is to keep the details of each individual woman's story straight, as most of them were so similar in their experience of absent parents, foster care, abuse, drugs, and poverty. I had a lot of trouble myself, and had to go back in the book a few times to make sure what I was remembering about one woman was in fact the truth. Pictures of each woman would have helped a great deal, but there are none in the book.
Their families and friends of the victims are given a lot of book time, probably too much. The amount of dysfunction every single one of them demonstrates becomes numbing after a while. Half of them accuse the other half of playing to the news cameras. The other half accuses the first half of not being upset or sensitive enough. Some are genuinely sympathetic, but most are alternately self-pitying, self-aggrandizing, and self-deceptive. And the 24 hour news cycle covers it all with salacious glee.
There is also a lot of book time given to the community where the women's bodies were found. These people make Greenwich Village seem like Mayberry. They're almost totally cut off from the outside world, and they like it that way. All the outsiders coming into the area for the investigation seemed to bother them more than the dozen bodies that were discovered. And don't even get me started on how petty resentments between neighbors all of a sudden turned into accusations of murder, warranted or not.
The police in charge of the investigation didn't come off as particularly intelligent or sympathetic either. They seemed more interested in dismissing the missing persons reports because the women were prostitutes, then covering their butts after actual bodies were found. The one cop mentioned by name who is even remotely heroic or motivated is a canine cop named Mallia who, along with his dog, discovered the bodies in the first place.
I understand the book was meant as a commentary on how easy it is for women to sell themselves for sex in the internet age, and how dangerous their lives are. It was meant to humanize the faces of those who most of society considers, "throwaway people", prostitutes, drug addicts, the homeless. It was meant to show how callous and dismissive the police and society can be when these "throwaway people" go missing or are found murdered. But what came across to me most strongly was how pathetic and sad and similar these women's lives were.
And here's the thing: each and every one of these women made a choice. It may have been the best choice out of a bad bunch, but they still made it. Yes their childhoods were terrible, yes their families were dysfunctional and poor, yes they were probably doomed from the time they were toddlers. But their profession was their choice. And not a one of them didn't have the opportunity to make different choices. Did they deserve or ask to be murdered? Of course not. The killer deserves to rot for what he did, and may still be doing. But to hold all of society responsible for these women's deaths is ridiculous.
I'm giving this book three stars because a lot of it was very well-written, but there were enormous holes in the narrative. As others have commented, there is next to no firsthand information about the investigation itself. Sloppy as it seemed to the families and the media, I find it hard to believe that's the whole story. Second, the lack of pictures is a serious drawback, if only because it makes it that much harder to keep the women straight. This does them a huge disservice, and was part of the reason the author wrote the book in the first place, to make them known as individuals. A third problem is the lack of a conclusion. I understand the investigation is still ongoing, and that's no reason for journalists not to write about it, but a book would be more appropriate when there is more information.
Overall, it was a very sad book. And I feel like I need a shower after reading it.
Top reviews from other countries
The book begins with Shannan Gilbert's panicked run from an escort out-call, calling 911 and banging on doors to ask for help, before she disappears into the darkness, never to be seen alive again. From there, Kolker winds back in time to delve into the background of the lives of Maureen, Megan, Melissa, Amber and Shannan and their families, exploring how they ended up working as escorts, their often-chaotic lives (many of the women struggled with addiction), and eventually their disappearance and death, and its effect on their loved ones.
The Long Island serial killer (or killers) has not been caught, and the book makes it clear just how easy it is for women who live on the margins to go missing without much of a fuss being made, with police and emergency services either seeing them as "just" a prostitute, or not believing that the women are genuinely missing, instead putting their disappearances down to their messy lives. The other bodies found in the area and the questions over whether this was the work of one or multiple killers are more than a little chilling.
Kolker interviews the families and friends of the women, local residents, suspects, and the police, taking as an objective a view as possible. His writing about the community near where the women were found evokes a strong sense of place as well as a sense of the close ties and simmering grudges of a small isolated town. He also draws a fascinating picture of the mixture of heartfelt support and infighting amongst the closest relatives of the victims once the bodies were found.
This is an excellent and well-written piece of longform journalism that avoids the schlocky tendencies of a lot of true crime books. The focus is on the victims' lives, not their deaths or the person who killed them. Bubbling under the surface is an indictment of how our society treats women who work in the sex trade, both in life and in death. Highly recommended.
Ok so it was a good book, would've gave all 5 but the coffee stain on the front, can't forget that! Otherwise it was an excellent read.