Chase Darkness with Me

Billy Jensen spent fifteen years working as a journalist on unsolved murders, writing on behalf of victims' families. Each piece he filed lacked an ending, because the killer was still free. After the sudden death of his friend, the crime writer Michelle McNamara, he decides to stop waiting for police and to investigate cases himself, starting where the official effort has stalled.

This is true crime told in the first person through Billy's own cases. He identifies the Halloween Mask Murderer, searches for a missing girl in the California Redwoods, and looks into the only other murder committed in New York City on 9/11. The book also follows his hunt for whoever killed the Allenstown 4 family.

A second thread covers Michelle's pursuit of the Golden State Killer, the subject of her book I'll Be Gone In The Dark, which Billy helped finish after her death. Those chapters give an insider's view of two of the most feared serial killer investigations.

The book also works as a practical guide. Billy lays out the tools and the rules he uses so that ordinary readers can help solve murders too. The tone is dark and driven, with the pace of a case being worked in real time. It suits anyone curious about how amateur investigation can reach cases the police have shelved.