Faber to publish the late Michelle McNamara’s first book, I’ll be Gone in the Dark

Faber and Faber are delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of the late Michelle McNamara’s first book, the extraordinary I’ll be Gone in the Dark, described by her husband the actor and comedian Patton Oswalt as ‘a true-crime narrative, a memoir and a still active mystery’.

Telling the story of the man McNamara came to dub ‘the Golden State Killer’, it charts the decade long run of terror of this serial rapist and murderer in the suburbs of California, which ran up to the early 1990s, when his trail went cold.

McNamara, who ran the popular true crime blog, TrueCrimeDiary.com, has written a mesmerising account of this incredibly troubling case and her attempts to follow and break new leads. Although she died unexpectedly just ahead of completing the book, it has been finished by her lead researcher and close colleague, and is framed by a brilliant introduction by super-fan Gillian Flynn and a moving afterword by Patton Oswalt.

Editorial Director Angus Cargill, who bought UK and Commonwealth rights in a major pre-empt from the Levine Greenberg Rostan agency, via Anna Carmichael at Abner Stein, described it as ‘one of the most thrilling acquisitions I’ve ever made, I genuinely couldn’t put the manuscript down, it was startling to come across a serial killer case of such magnitude and horror which I had not heard of, and it was then feverishly read by so many of my colleagues. Mixing Michelle’s personal quest with the more mundane realities of being a young mother and the powerful pull of the internet, with its online communities of amateur sleuths, she has written a modern classic, a book that stands tall in the company of such greats as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and In Cold Blood. With the recent new wave of true-crime fans emerging – from shows such as S-Town, Making a Murderer and Mindhunter – it will be a really exciting time to publish.’

Faber will publish in March 2018.