The Grim Sleeper: The Lost Women of South Central

Today’s review is on The Grim Sleeper: The Lost Women of South Central by Christine Pelisek. It is 325 pages long and is published by Counterpoint. The cover is a picture of an alley like where the murdered women were found. The intended reader is someone who is interested in true crime and old cases being solved. There is foul language, sex, rape, and violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- In 2006, Christine Pelisek broke the story of a terrifying serial killer who went unchecked in Los Angeles for decades, killing the most vulnerable women in one South Central neighborhood. Two years later, in her cover article for L.A. Weekly, Pelisek dubbed him "The Grim Sleeper" for his long break between murders. The killer preyed on a community devastated by crime and drugs and left behind a trail of bodies—all women of color, all murdered in a similar fashion, and all discarded in the alleys of Los Angeles.
The case of the Grim Sleeper is unforgettably singular. But it also tells a wider story about homicide investigations in areas beset by poverty, gang violence, and despair; about how a serial killer could continue his grisly work for two decades in part due to society’s lack of concern for his chosen victims; and about the power and tenacity of those women’s families and the detectives who refused to let the case go cold.
No one knows this story better than Pelisek, the reporter who followed it for more than ten years, and has written the definitive book on the capture of one of America’s most ruthless serial killers. Based on extensive interviews, reportage, and information never released to the public, The Grim Sleeper captures the long, bumpy road to justice in one of the most startling true crime stories of our generation.

Review- A little slow to get going but once it did you will be hooked until the end. Pelisek starts with her conversation with a detective. She was a true crime reporter for the LA Weekly and was just hassling him for something to write about.  He didn’t really give her anything that day but she worked on him and soon enough he did. He gave the story about the unsolved serial murderers of a number of young black women in the 1980’s. Pelsiek was soon obsessed with the murders. There was so much information, like DNA and a good profile of the doer. But nothing ever panned out for twenty plus years. Pelisek tells the story of the women from their murders then she tells us about the women themselves. She wants the reader to understand these women and what drove them into the path of a murderer. The first third of the book is very slow but when we jump into the present day things really get going. Pelisek gives the reader every detail about the crimes, the detectives hunting him, and the trial of the murderer.  The ending is satisfying in a way that is rare in true crime nonfiction.

I give this book a Three out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.