Lost Girls
The Unsolved American Mystery of the Gilgo Beach Serial Killer Murders
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3.7 • 173 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
New York Times Bestseller • Now a Netflix Film
“Rich, tragic. . . monumental. . . true-crime reporting at its best.”— Washington Post
The bestselling account of the lives of five young women whose fates converged in the perplexing case of the Long Island Serial Killer—with a new epilogue by the author.
One late spring evening in 2010, Shannan Gilbert—after running through the oceanfront community of Oak Beach screaming for her life—went missing. No one who had heard of her disappearance thought much about what had happened to the twenty-four-year-old: she was a Craigslist escort who had been fleeing a scene—of what, no one could be sure. The Suffolk County police, too, seemed to have paid little attention—until seven months later, when an unexpected discovery near remote Gilgo Beach on Long Island turned up four bodies, all evenly spaced, all wrapped in burlap. But none of them Shannan’s.
There was Maureen Brainard-Barnes, last seen at Penn Station in Manhattan three years earlier, and Melissa Barthelemy, last seen in the Bronx in 2009. There was Megan Waterman, last seen leaving a hotel in Hauppauge, Long Island, just a month after Shannon’s disappearance in 2010, and Amber Lynn Costello, last seen leaving a house in West Babylon a few months later that same year. Like Shannan, all four women were petite, in their twenties, and had come from out of town to work as escorts, and they all had advertised on Craigslist and its competitor, Backpage.
Long considered “one of the best true-crime books of all time” (Time), 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. This edition includes an epilogue that speaks to developments in the case, including the shocking fate of Mari Gilbert, Shannan’s mother, for whom this case became the crusade of a lifetime.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Investigative reporter Robert Kolker’s true-crime book about the infamous Long Island serial killer is full of compassion and empathy, focusing on the victims’ lives rather than merely rehashing the heinous crimes. Before they were murdered, the five women whose bodies were found in 2010 in the vicinity of Gilgo Beach had lives and dreams of their own. With deep sensitivity and journalistic integrity, Kolker tells us much more about these individuals whose identities were flattened by sensationalistic TV news headlines. There’s Maureen, the dreamer; Melissa, the tough girl; and Shannan, a singer who loved being on stage. Carefree Megan was a daredevil, while Amber only wanted to fit in. When these women fell on hard luck, they became vulnerable to a murderer’s twisted plans. And though the law didn’t protect these women—and the justice system still hasn’t avenged them—Kolker rights an injustice by making them visible and helping us understand who they were. Watch the adaptation of Lost Girls, which focuses primarily on Shannan’s story, to get an even deeper look at the impact of the murders on the victims’ families.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In stark contrast to the ugliness of the story, Kolker's sad tale of five young women linked by the tragic circumstances of their disappearances is beautifully and provocatively written. The book opens with a prologue that casts an appropriately eerie pall on the proceedings: after arriving late one spring night at Long Island's Oak Beach, Shannan Gilbert, an escort who was in the area to see a client, began banging on doors and screaming for help. Her pleas went unanswered, and then she disappeared. That was in 2010. Seven months later, the corpses of four women also escorts were found nearby. Kolker, a contributing editor at New York magazine, outlines each woman's descent into a world "that many of their loved ones could not imagine," and in doing so renders each as fully fleshed out individuals forced to make tough decisions to navigate a tough world. Just the right amount of detail 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. 10 maps & timeline.
Customer Reviews
Was Ok.
I simply didn’t like the way it was organized. It jumped around too much between people and events and I had difficulty keeping track of everyone and their backstory. The author was obviously very knowledgeable and completed a substantial amount of research and investigation, but in my opinion, the product on the page didn’t work well for me.
Phenomenal Book
The way he covered the families, the before during and after for each girl, within their biological and street identities, was phenomenal. A truly dynamic and effective writing style, as well.