Lost Girls audiobook

As a kid, I started reading true crime with Helter Skelter, then went on to the master (Ann Rule) and never looked back. Sometime in the last decade, true crime took a wrong turn (in my opinion, of course). The writing stopped focusing on the victim and started glorifying the killer. Serial killers (or just regular murderers) are not sexy or charming. They are violent killers. I hate when writers get so caught up in the who that they forget the why of the victim.Lost Girls doesn't forget the victims. In fact, it explores the victims' lives and explains how exactly they ended up in such dire straits that they fell prey to a sadistic killer. The book also explores the escort scene, and how instrumental (and dangerous) Craig's List is to the sex trade. I think for these pieces alone, it's well worth reading.

A no-miss, for sure. read on for the brief version; a longer version can be found here.Five young women are the central focus of this excellent book, five "lost girls" who went to work one day and never returned. All were escorts advertising their services on Craigslist; four of them ended up as bodies wrapped in burlap hidden near the main road of Jones Beach Island (NY), close to the small gated community of Oak Beach. The body of the fifth young woman was located almost a year to the day after the other four. Lost Girls offers no solution, no grisly details of how these murders were committed, or any of the usual true-crime components, because as the title reveals, the mystery behind the deaths of these young women has not yet been solved. Instead, the author reveals a) the lives of these women up to the very moment when they were last seen alive, b) some speculation about some of the residents of the small, gated community of Oak Beach where one of these women was last seen running through the streets, c) the events behind the discovery of the bodies and the lax attitudes of the police and other officials who ran the investigation, and finally, d) the aftermath of the girls' disappearances among the families and friends they left behind, as well as the crazy media circus after the discoveries of the bodies. Most pointedly, however, he examines how each and every one of these "lost girls" and their families were failed by the system due to officials' indifference toward them, primarily based on what they did for a living. Lost Girls is simply one of the best works of true crime/reportage I've ever read. Once I picked up the book, I stayed buried in it for the entire day until I'd turned the last page. I loved this book from beginning to end, so I have pretty much nothing negative to say about it, but there are a couple of issues. First (and this is a very minor one), Sanibel Island is not part of the Florida Keys, although the author states this while reporting on an interview with one of the Oak Beach residents. Second -- where the heck are the photos? I mean, photos to give the victims a face instead of having to rely on descriptions would have been the perfect touch -- I sat with my Ipad on my lap to get visuals of these "lost girls." It's a stunning book, and I most highly recommend it to anyone who may be interested.

The author did a great job of capturing the story of the Long Island Serial Killer from all angles. I was glad to see that even though I was a vigilante web detective suffering from tunnel vision, the author described me as a "skilled researcher" and much of the information I gathered was ultimately utilized in the book.

One of the great films of the last decade is David Fincher's Zodiac. But even though it had all the ingredients of his earlier film Seven, it disappointed commercially and failed to win any prestige awards. Too long, maybe, too many characters to sort through.But the biggest reason the movie flopped may have been something inherent to the story: the Zodiac killer, unlike Kevin Spacey in Seven, has never been caught. Maybe people of a certain age knew that going in, but for anyone under the age of 40, that likely came as a discouraging revelation by film's end. After 3 hours of claustrophobic psychological suspense, the lack of proper closure may have doomed the film.Too bad, because Zodiac was only ever partly about the serial killer. The filmmakers were playing for higher stakes.The same mindset may be helpful for readers of Robert Kolker's gripping new account of the Long Island serial killer, Lost Girls. The book's subtitle tells you that this case is still open, so why devote 400 pages to a crime story that has no conclusion?Because it's not really about the Long Island serial killer.It's about five women and their families, and how their murders ripped them apart before, in a strange irony, bringing them all together. It's about the seedy underworld of prostitution, and the new reality of Internet prostitution, which for all its convenience manages to be even seedier than traditional prostitution.It's about the obsessive nature of crime-solving in the Internet age, where conspiracy theories are able to foment and amateur sleuths take it upon themselves to implicate anyone who fits into pre-conceived narratives.And finally, it's about the ripple effects of murder, how it consumes families and communities and comes to define them. The locals resent the intrusion from outsiders and all the media attention, while at the same time relishing their turn as minor celebrities, experts of their domain. The victims' families, despite genuine heartbreak, become oddly cliquish and proprietary of their victimhood, in some cases showing depths of concern for their loved ones in death they never showed in life.Lost Girls begins with sketches of the five women whose bodies were eventually found along Gilgo Beach in Long Island. The names and places differ, but each story follows a sadly similar trajectory: low-income, often absent parenting; rampant drug and alcohol abuse from an early age; unplanned pregnancies in most cases; and a history of sexual abuse are all the common denominators in wondering how young girls all described as generous, loving, and intelligent would enter the dangerous world of sex-for-profit on their own accord. Many readers have noted how hard it is to keep each story straight (especially in the absence of photos), but perhaps that confusion, that names and events all kind of bleed together in the reader's memory, is intentional.Who killed these women? Is it one of the people depicted in this book? One man in particular goes under heavy scrutiny (much the way Arthur Leigh Allen was singled out, but never proven, in Zodiac). I was actually surprised how freely Kolker published the unfiltered conjecture of various folks, notably one conspiracy theorist on the island, even though the man in question has never been considered a suspect by the police.Kolker admirably maintains an objective, non-judgmental tone throughout, but you will not have to dig too deep to read this as the indictment of sex culture that it is. When we stigmatize sex workers and keep their work in the shadows, the men who prey on them are able to do their business in the shadows as well. Lost Girls goes a long way toward shedding some light on this issue.

As a very frequent reader of true crime I hardly if ever read unsolved crimes because the part I like best is when the perpetrator is caught and punished. How glad I am that I decided to give this book a try, if not I would have missed a very emotional and good read and would not have known about this shocking case.First of all I compliment the author how well he brought the girls to life.Yes there were no photo's but I did not mind that so much. After I finished reading I looked them up online. I did add some spoilers but I suggest if you have not yet read this book,skip all reviews including mine and just jump in knowing nothing.Because I did not know about this case beforehand this book read like a thriller. How shocked I was with what happened to Shannan Gilbert and how angry when nothing was done apparently.This is a very weird story. Are there more killers or is it just one? Sorry but I do not belief what they (cops) said happened to Shannon. Hardly possible so it was just a coincidence?Anyway the first 2 parts of the book were great. Here the author makes us get to know the girls. They each have a chapter. Then in the second book they all have a chapter again but now they are named by the nicks they used as prostitutes. People complain that there is hardly anything about what the cops had found and nothing about the case or any police work which is true but I think that is not the fault of the author but probably the cops do not want to speculate anymore about he case and keep their distance from the press. Isn't it horrible when they have so much power and it feels like they do nothing to solve this case and there is nothing you as a mu or loved one can do?The third part was speculation. What everybody thought had happened which I thought was interesting as well. My first thought was the john. Why did Shannan become so scared? it all began with Joe Brewer.There must be a reason why nobody, not the cops or the ones in the book suspects him but instead think the other guy Hackett is involved.At the end of the book the author interviewed Joe Brewer who apparently had lots of fun being interviewed laughing a lot.So for me this was a great book and it deserves 5 stars. Can't wait for another book by this author but even more I cannot wait for this case to be solved.

This is a bit different than the true crime novels I usually read. It’s a bit more of a mix of true crime AND biography than just a straight up true crime novel. At first I was a little annoyed by that but I quickly got into it as a learned more about these girls and my heart started feeling for them. It also didn’t have all the trial and conviction details that most true crime stories have seeing as it’s still unsolved despite a pretty evident suspect. But I enjoyed the fresh spin on a true crime novel, getting to know the victims and their families so well was both heartbreaking and yet so rewarding. My only complaint is how we were first introduced to each character under her real name one by one and then reintroduced to them under her sex work name one by one. It made things a little bit confusing and hard to keep track of, I almost found myself wanting to take notes. Other than that minor detail it was a really captivating and heart breaking story I won’t soon forget.

Tony and Al were guys Maureen had been hoping to get to know better, guys who might help her stop doing this [prostitution] one day. She had told her friend Jay DuBrule that porn was legal and safer and easier than what she was doing; it resembled a legitimate entertainment career and was one step closer to the life she dreamed about. Okay, so WTF!!!!This is why I read, to understand how someone can feel this way. On the surface this passage blows my mind. I'm certainly no prude, but I'm the first to admit, I'm pretty vanilla when it comes to the seedier sides of life.Ironically, compared to many, I came from a troubled home. When I was about three, my mentally ill father went to prison for kidnapping and raping my aunt. I spent the next six years visiting him in prison. My mother had no choice but to become a welfare mother, even if only temporarily. In the end she ended up with a married man who then led a double life. Yet by some standards it was a successful relationship, since it lasted for over 20 years until his death. From the age of 5, I was left at home with my sister who was 18 months older. Even back then we gave new meaning to the term "latch key kids."As a teen, like many teen girls, I struggled silently with bulimia, which isn't surprising when you consider the lack of control I felt in so many aspects of my life. Yet I was an honor roll student, a good girl in every sense, a model teenager in every way. I was the first and only person in my immediate and extended family to get more than an associates degree, eventually earning a professional masters. I'm now married with four beautiful children and although marriage is a challenge at times, (both my husband and I are from broken families and grew up without any positive role models) we somehow manage to make it work. In short, while unconventional, I'd like to think the science experiment worked.Sure, I have demons. I struggle with taking chances. I often feel like I'm the odd duck, the outsider, and have difficulty with intimate relationships, especially with people outside my family which is my "normal." But, hey, that just makes me completely "normal." In short, I guess my fucked-up-ness exists on a reasonable scale. In the end, I feel I am a happy person. I have a sense of peace and satisfaction with who I am and where I'm going. I don't feel the need to beat up on myself because I'm not perfect...at least not most of the time.Clearly, there are those who had a more stable childhood, a more traditional family...and obviously, there are those who had it much worse than I did. In fact, I'm not sure I had it rough at all, because despite all the dysfunction on surface, at the end of the day I felt loved and cared for. My mother wasn't perfect, but she did her best...and that made all the difference.Anyway, this story wasn't what I expected from a true crime novel, but it was a worthy read nonetheless. Rather than focusing an the crime, which is still unsolved, and much of the investigation, which is only superficially covered, Kolker focuses on the murdered girls and their journeys.There is no question the chain of dysfunction is long and, in these women's cases, unbreakable. The fact that they ended up as prostitutes and escorts often abusing drugs only reinforces that sometimes stereotypes exist for a reason. I'll admit at times I pitied these girls, yet at other times I admired them...not for their choices but for their gumption, their determination, their will to survive in a world where everything seemed stacked against them.So while this what not what I expected, it still delivered. I was fascinated by the escort/sex-for-sale culture. The idea that this stuff goes on in my world is hard to accept since it is so far removed from my experience. I am grateful for that, btw, but still for this reason, much of this read like fiction to me. Who would I recommend this to? I'm not sure. It's well-written and I enjoyed it, but I also felt that many people who did not as expressed in the reviews I read had very valid reasons for not liking it. I'll end with a quote that made me question if I should be embarrassed by or thankful for my naivete. In 2009, Craigslist earned a reported $45 million a year from Adult Services ads, or about a third of the company's total profits (the site had started charging $5 per posting just a year earlier)...The demand for commercial sex will never go away. Neither will the internet; they're stuck with each other. It may no longer even matter anymore whether the sale of sex among consenting adults is wrong or right, immoral or empowering. What's clear is that no good can come from pretending that the people who participate in prostitution don't exist. That, after all, is what the killer was counting on.

Could not put this book down. The kind of book that leaves me wondering, now what the HELL am I going to read? No doubt whatever I read next will suffer by close comparison.

“Lost Girls” is a grim trip to the underbelly of prostitution and drugs and desperation. And serial killers. Robert Kolker draws intimate portraits of women on the economic edge of society—Maureen, Melissa, Shannon, Megan and Amber. He gives them identities, families, cares and concerns. He invites us into their worlds and we meet real individuals with real hopes and dreams. These are not quick, newspaper-abbreviated glimpses.The first half of “Lost Girls” draws their slow journey down into the shady world of Craigslist ads, pimps, fast cash and drugs. From all across the Eastern United States, these women end up, ultimately, in and around New York. Kolker shows us how money is made—the risks, the scary encounters and how drugs create a black hole of delusion. The second half of “Lost Girls” looks at the police investigation into the series of disappearances and, when the bodies start turning up in and around Oak Beach along the southern shore of Long Island, murder. In fact, the unusual Oak Beach community and its peculiar denizens and unusual circumstances become a key part of the book. Is Oak Beach and the endless vacant shoreline around Gilgo State Park a dumping ground, or is it possible the murderer lives in the midst of this small, offbeat community? Kolker rings doorbells and asks questions that would have left my knees knocking. He keeps his role to a minimum; rarely puts himself on stage on the story. Kolker is there in the story but mostly focuses on the victims and the circle of friends who provoke the bureaucracy to keep looking for answers. Kolker asks whether the police (society?) care enough about victims from the underclasses. Some of the police effort is sparked and prompted by family, friends and co-workers of the victims, who organize and pressure the cops to step up the intensity and focus on their work. They form their own little detective crew and start asking hard questions the police should be asking and, of course, we wonder if the police shouldn’t have enough reason to care, with all the body parts and shallow graves. Kolker shows police departments led by individuals with pet theories and personal agendas out of sync with science, evidence or, at the very least, clear thinking. This is a brilliant book. Despite the “unsolved” nature of the case (right there in the tag line of the title), we can draw our own conclusions: the killer is still out there and not enough has been done to figure out who it is. Haunting.

Lost Girls is an amazing piece of work. I’ve been a huge fan of true crime since I read “In Cold Blood” as a kid. My mom hid Helter Skelter from me, saying I was too young and she was probably right. I’ve also devoured everything that Ann Rule has written. She’s definitely missed in this genre. There have only been a few true crime books that I have not been able to finish reading. This has usually been due to the writing being so all over the place that it’s tough to keep track of who is who or I felt that the author was more on the side of the killer instead of the victim, which didn’t sit right with me. I think Robert Kolker does an amazing job of portraying the victims as humans with family and friends. Since the killer has not been caught yet, it worked perfectly since obviously details of the investigation would be off limits. The book also reads like a story and not as much like a true life event. I’d definitely recommend if you like this kind of book.

Haunting. That's the first word that comes to mind after finishing Lost Girls, about the victims of the serial killer on Long Island. The book was also chilling and compulsively read-able. I stayed up one night until 2 am, unable to put the book down, completely freaked out by what I was reading. The section detailing how the killer called the younger sister of one of the victims to taunt her still gives me chills when I think about it. Because the killer has yet to be apprehended, and because the police investigation is so cagey, the only thing we really know about the case are the stories of the girls who were murdered. But this actually leads to the strength of the novel. So many stories of serial crimes focus on the killer, not on the victims. The victims become props in the story, easily shunted aside so we can get a view of the killer and try to figure out what causes some people to do such evil things. In Lost Girls the narrative focuses on the victims and that's a refreshing change of pace. These women were real people, not just prostitutes or drug addicts or sad cautionary tales. Robert Kolker does a great job of fleshing them out, showing them as multi-faceted human beings. What I was so impressed by was how the book presented a journalistic yet compassionate view of all the people involved in the case, from the victims to their family members. In reporting on the victims, their families, and their stories the book truly strives to be balanced. Kolker doesn't judge the girls for how they lived their lives, just presents their stories and shows them as nuanced human beings with strengths and failings. It's nonjudgemental; matter-of-fact yet compassionate.I'll admit to tearing up towards the end of the book and being touched by the tragedy of these women's lives cut short. I'm glad Kolker told the victims' stories and did so in such an evenhanded way. It's a sobering look at the economic inequality in this country, and the need to do something about the dangers of sex work done in a shadowy underworld. Really a must-read.

A damning yet rivetingly written report about the serial killer(s) haunting long beach and targeting female sex workers. Don’t approach this book wanting answers - you are simply left with an abundance of questions and irritation at the seeming ineptitude and derogatory attitude of the local police conducting the investigation. This book really highlights the victims and brings them back to life whilst also exploring all the theories about who hastened the end of their life and who the remaining Jane does could be. It makes for a unsettling and upsetting read.

This is a fascinating, disturbing, terrifying, and deeply sad book. It's a study of the deaths of five women, all of them "escorts" who advertised on Craigslist, four of the five (if not all five) murdered by the same person. Kolker isn't so much interested in the investigation as he is in the biographies of the victims and the stories of the people who survive them. He's compassionately non-judgmental (I think the only person I could actually tell Kolker didn't like was Shannan Gilbert's last john) and what he ends up writing is a study of modern American poverty as much as it is anything else. These women didn't resort to prostitution because they were corrupt or lazy; they resorted to prostitution because they needed the money. The money they could make at "honest" jobs (and those "honest" jobs being hard to come by) just looks ridiculous next to the money they could make as escorts. Kolker comments at the end, "The demand for commercial sex will never go away" (381), and the truth of that is something America has been failing to cope with for a very long time. In most ways, the world that these women lived and died in is very different from the world that Helen Jewett lived and died in (The Murder of Helen Jewett), but in some ways it is horribly the same. And if you compare the hardship--and outright lethal danger--of trying to make a living as an escort via Craigslist with the relative safety and security of the women at Mustang Ranch (Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women) it kind of makes you despair of a society that would rather blame the prostitute than admit any shred of responsibility on the part of the john. Would rather condone murder than give women (and men) a chance to do this job safely and with dignity.Kolker doesn't try to impose a narrative on something that is intrinsically narativeless. There's only parts of a story here, parts that can't be lined up with each other. Lost Girls is a gentle ironizing of books like Someone's Daughter, as Kolker records the alliance formed by the mothers and sisters and friends of the murdered women, and then records the way that alliance falls apart under the pressure of the horrible anti-closure of the case. The arc of redemptive community, of the survivors coming together to create a family, ends with a woman unwilling to talk to the accidentally encountered father of her murdered sister's son because she's afraid of looking like a stalker. There is nothing, Kolker suggests, that is redeemable about these crimes, only destruction.