American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 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"
A Bustle "The Best New True Crime Books You Can Read Right 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 fourteen 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.
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"
A Bustle "The Best New True Crime Books You Can Read Right 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 fourteen 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.
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Community Reviews
Exhaustively researched, and Callahan does a really good job of taking all the scattered pieces and fitting them together into a sinister timeline of events.
Exhaustively researched, and Callahan does a really good job of taking all the scattered pieces and fitting them together into a sinister timeline of events.
They caught him while searching for a missing teenager from Anchorage, Alaska. They weren't sure whether she was dead or alive at that point and he wasn't talking, so they went to his mother for help. Her answer: "I can't help you." "If God wants that girl to be found, she'll be found." (It turns out she was already dead.) Then it becomes clear, he knew exactly what he was doing, he planned this, and... he's done this before...
A friend recommended this book, and when I started reading, I realized I remembered reading about this guy. How he taunted the investigators, promising to give them all the info on his victims, and instead just stringing them along, like the psychopath he was.
I'm a sucker for true crime stories, trying to figure out why these criminals do what they do, what makes them this way. Keyes was raised in a "religious" family, who ran from one extremist cult to the other. His father may have been abusive. But this alone does not turn someone into a psychopathic serial killer. I read another book that claimed that brain scans of psychopaths showed a distinct difference from "normal" people. Keyes talked about how he learned to fake his feelings and put on a mask of civility and just assumed that everyone else did the same.
I always thought it would be so nice to have a little house in the middle of nowhere so we can escape the city and "get away from it all." This book definitely cured me of that fantasy!
Exhaustively researched, and Callahan does a really good job of taking all the scattered pieces and fitting them together into a sinister timeline of events.
They caught him while searching for a missing teenager from Anchorage, Alaska. They weren't sure whether she was dead or alive at that point and he wasn't talking, so they went to his mother for help. Her answer: "I can't help you." "If God wants that girl to be found, she'll be found." (It turns out she was already dead.) Then it becomes clear, he knew exactly what he was doing, he planned this, and... he's done this before...
A friend recommended this book, and when I started reading, I realized I remembered reading about this guy. How he taunted the investigators, promising to give them all the info on his victims, and instead just stringing them along, like the psychopath he was.
I'm a sucker for true crime stories, trying to figure out why these criminals do what they do, what makes them this way. Keyes was raised in a "religious" family, who ran from one extremist cult to the other. His father may have been abusive. But this alone does not turn someone into a psychopathic serial killer. I read another book that claimed that brain scans of psychopaths showed a distinct difference from "normal" people. Keyes talked about how he learned to fake his feelings and put on a mask of civility and just assumed that everyone else did the same.
I always thought it would be so nice to have a little house in the middle of nowhere so we can escape the city and "get away from it all." This book definitely cured me of that fantasy!
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