American Predator

Israel Keyes was a quiet construction worker who doted on his daughter. Few people had heard of him before his arrest, yet the FBI judged his methods unprecedented.

He buried caches of cash, weapons and tools for disposing of bodies in remote spots around the country. Later he flew to a faraway city, rented a car and drove for days to reach a cache. He broke into strangers' homes and took victims in broad daylight, and within hours he was back home.

Maureen Callahan learned of the case in 2012 and spent years reporting it. The book is true crime built on interviews with investigators and people from Keyes's life, along with FBI files. It shows how he was identified and caught in Alaska.

It also presses on a harder problem: a killer with such reach stayed undetected for so long, and that reveals where conventional policing falls short. Many of his crimes remain unsolved.