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Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery Paperback – May 6, 2014

by Robert Kolker (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 3,376 ratings
Editors' pick Best Nonfiction
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Soon to be a Netflix film

One of Slate’s Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years

A literary account of the lives and presumed serial killings of five “Craigslist” prostitutes, whose bodies were found on the same Long Island beach in 2010. Based on the New York Magazine cover story.

Shannan wanted acceptance. Maureen wanted a solution. Megan wanted love. Melissa wanted adventure. Amber wanted to be saved.

Over the course of three years, each of these young women vanished without a trace: Maureen in 2007, Melissa and Megan in 2009, and Amber and Shannan in 2010. All but one of their bodies was discovered on Gilgo Beach, Long Island, an unsettled, overgrown seven-mile stretch of shoreline on the string of barrier islands along South Oyster Bay.

Sharing the same profile—all were in their twenties, all but one was under five feet tall, and all were prostitutes who advertised on Craigslist—the police concluded they were all the victims of one murderer, the Long Island serial killer—the most skillful and accomplished serial killer in New York since the “Son of Sam,” David Berkowitz. But as intrepid young reporter Robert Kolker discovered, the truth about these women went far deeper than common assumptions. The victims weren’t outcasts; they weren’t kidnapped or enslaved. All came from a slice of America ignored by politicians and the media: the poor, often rural and white parts of the country hit hard by economics, where limited opportunities force people to make hard choices—choices that lead them to places like Gilgo Beach.

Working closely with the women’s families, Lost Girls tells the stories of their deaths and their lives, offering a searing portrait of crime and circumstance that goes to the heart of modern America itself.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    416 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harper Perennial
  4. Publication date
    May 6, 2014
  5. Dimensions
    5.31 x 0.94 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0062183656
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0062183651
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Kolker is a careful writer and researcher...[he paints] a far more nuanced picture of each young woman than any screaming headline could.” (Miami Herald)

“Through extensive interviews with the victims’ families and friends, Kolker creates compassionate portraits of the murdered young women, and uncovers the forces that drove them from their respective home towns into risky, but lucrative, careers as prostitutes in a digital age.” ( New Yorker )

“Captivating.” (Boston Globe)

“Robert Kolker unflinchingly probes the 21st-century innovations that facilitated these crimes… ...An important examination of the socioeconomic and cultural forces that can shape a woman’s entry into prostitution.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Beautifully and provocatively written.... [Lost Girls] 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.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review))

“Robert Kolker’s LOST GIRLS is reportage at the highest level; it’s miss-your-bedtime storytelling… It’s a wonder.” (Darin Strauss, author of Half A Life)

“Lost Girls is a marvelous book, taking a complicated, trying story and making it compulsively readable. Kolker is an outstanding reporter and a sensitive narrator who does justice to a horrible tragedy by paying exactly the kind of attention that no one else did, or would.” (Nick Reding, author of Methland)

“The absence of the killer is the making of this book, a constraint that allows it to become extraordinary…humane and imaginative…[Kolker] shows the dented magnificence and universal sorrow within ordinary lives, and makes you realize how much more they are worth.” ( Laura Miller, Salon )

“Kolker indulges in zero preaching and very little sociology; his is the lens of a classic police reporter. And often in Lost Girls, the facts are eloquent in themselves.” (Newsday)

“Some true crime books are exploitative…others grasp at serious literature. Robert Kolker’s new book falls into the latter category.” (New York Observer)

“Readers expecting an SVU-style true-crime story will be disappointed. But through detailed profiles of the victims themselves, Kolker has written a more provocative book―a book that is as much about class and economic pressures as it is about sex work and murder.” ( The Daily Beast )

“Meticulously reported and beautifully written, Robert Kolker’s Lost Girls is a haunting and powerful crime story that gives voice to those who can no longer be heard. It is a story that you will not be able to forget.” (David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon)

“A gothic whodunit for the Internet age…nearly unputdownable…[LOST GIRLS is] a horrific, cautionary tale that makes for a very different kind of beach read…Kolker expertly chronicles the sad cycle of poor, uneducated white women faced with lots of kids and few resources.” (Mimi Swartz, New York Times Book Review)

“Rich, tragic...monumental...true-crime reporting at its best.” (Washington Post)

“Engrossing...a car-crash of a book...By humanizing the women, Mr. Kolker has produced a subtle indictment of the sex trade.” ( Nina Burleigh, New York Observer )

“A heart-chilling non-fiction tour-de-force...terrifying and intensely reported.” ( Complex Magazine )

“A rare gem of a book that not only tells a riveting story but illuminates something about a slice of America and gets into a lot of very deep issues. Its really great on every front.” ( Slate, DoubleX )

“Riveting and often heartbreaking...a lashing critique of how society, and the police, let these young women down.” (New York Times)

“Immensely evocative...we are left with is a visceral understanding of the lives of the victims and why they should have mattered more.” ( New York Daily News )

“Terrific...vivid and moving...Grade: A-” ( Entertainment Weekly )

“So masterful.” ( Megan Abbott, author of Dare Me , via Twitter )

“By learning the intimate details of the women’s lives, seeing them as humans rather than victims, we see our similarities…Lost Girls is possibly the realest, fullest picture of what is happening with sex work in the US right now.” (The Guardian (UK))

“Kolker does not hold back in addressing the fact that there was dysfunction in these women’s lives. They were drug addicts and teenage mothers and petty criminals. They suffered. But he can also see that within those circumstances they had moments of strength and self-assurance. ” (Barnes & Noble Review )

“Lost Girls is partly unsolved mystery...[partly]the intimate story of the five women… [and] a case study in the profound impact of the Internet, and particularly Craigslist, on the business of buying and selling sex.” (National Post (Canada))

From the Back Cover

A Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of 2013

Award-winning investigative reporter Robert Kolker delivers a humanizing account of the true-life search for a serial killer still at large on Long Island, and presents the first detailed look at the shadow world of online escorts, where making a living is easier than ever and the dangers remain all too real. A triumph of reporting, a riveting narrative, and "a lashing critique of how society and the police let five young women down" (Dwight Garner, New York Times), 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.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (May 6, 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0062183656
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062183651
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 0.94 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 3,376 ratings

About the author

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Robert Kolker

Robert Kolker

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Robert Kolker is the author of Hidden Valley Road, an instant #1 New York Times best-seller and selection of Oprah's Book Club that was named a Top Ten Book of the Year by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Slate; one of the year’s best by NPR, the Boston Globe, the New York Post, and Amazon; the #1 book of the year by People; and one of President Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2020. His previous work includes Lost Girls, also a New York Times best-seller and New York Times Notable Book, and one of Slate’s best nonfiction books of the quarter century. He is a National Magazine Award finalist whose journalism has appeared in New York magazine, the New York Times Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, Wired, O, the Oprah Magazine, and The Marshall Project.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
3,376 global ratings
Product was in bad condition
2 Stars
Product was in bad condition
I write a two star review not for the story, but the product that was shipped to me. Despite it telling me I was buying a NEW book, it was very obvious that this one was used. There was some humidity damage and pieces of the book being peeled; basically damage that doesn't happen in the mail. There was also a barcode placed on the front of the book that pulled some of the cover off with it when removed. I was extremely dissatisfied with this product.
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Top reviews from the United States

Maggie Rubenfeld
5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible writing about a brutal subject
Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2023
Verified Purchase
I’m almost never interested in true crime writing, but found this book after an article I recently read regarding this heinous case. Kolker does an incredible job here— he treats each woman (and her family) with a gentle decency and grace, compassion, and genuine curiosity. I couldn’t put it down; it was some of the best non-fiction writing I’ve ever read.
By bizarre happenstance, I was a few pages from the end of the book when the news broke that they finally arrested the suspected killer (July 14th 2023). I burst into tears at the news, genuinely surprising myself. The book had moved me so deeply, engaged me so thoroughly, and enraged me so fiercely on behalf of the victims and their families, that it felt like a true miracle to see this monster finally found and arrested. God rest the souls of these women, their families who are still alive and those who have passed on without ever knowing what happened, and God bless Kolker for shining a light (beautifully) on this horrific case.
37 people found this helpful
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Michael Kleeberg
4.0 out of 5 stars Well, That was a Cheerful Little Story
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2019
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I am an avid reader of murder mysteries. I don't know why I prefer this genre over others. I will leave that question to the social sciences. As books go, this one is well constructed, readable, and all the commas are in the right place. But It's a downer. And because it's a downer, I think it's good for people like me to read. It's good to be reminded that real people end up subject to brutality. It's good to be confronted with evidence that our culture does not, in fact, regard all human life as equally worthy. It's good to be compelled to acknowledge that violent crime leaves more than just the victim in pieces: It tears families apart, it leaves loved ones sick with guilt over wondering how they could have prevented it, it turns friendly--or at least civil--neighbors into beasts snarling at one another, straining at the chains of restraint or wisdom, wanting only to tear into one another. Finally, it is sobering to learn that in the real life versions of stories that I read for entertainment, seldom do grim-jawed heroes come bursting through the door at the last second, to save the innocent and bring the evildoers to justice. Lost Girls left me immensely sad because of its truth, I'm thinking of switching to comic books for awhile.
144 people found this helpful
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Liz
3.0 out of 5 stars Lost Girls: What Went Wrong?
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2014
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I must admit, I chose to read this book because it was listed as a New York Times Notable Book for 2013. I'm not usually a true-crime fan, but this story seemed quite gripping, and I felt sorry for these five women whose lives were almost nonexistent even before they died.

Mr. Kolker obviously did a lot of work in tracking down the details of these women's pasts and how their bodies came to be found in marshland on a forgotten barrier island. The first half of the book talks about their childhoods, mostly about how awful they were. Other commentators have noted how hard it is to keep the details of each individual woman's story straight, as most of them were so similar in their experience of absent parents, foster care, abuse, drugs, and poverty. I had a lot of trouble myself, and had to go back in the book a few times to make sure what I was remembering about one woman was in fact the truth. Pictures of each woman would have helped a great deal, but there are none in the book.

Their families and friends of the victims are given a lot of book time, probably too much. The amount of dysfunction every single one of them demonstrates becomes numbing after a while. Half of them accuse the other half of playing to the news cameras. The other half accuses the first half of not being upset or sensitive enough. Some are genuinely sympathetic, but most are alternately self-pitying, self-aggrandizing, and self-deceptive. And the 24 hour news cycle covers it all with salacious glee.

There is also a lot of book time given to the community where the women's bodies were found. These people make Greenwich Village seem like Mayberry. They're almost totally cut off from the outside world, and they like it that way. All the outsiders coming into the area for the investigation seemed to bother them more than the dozen bodies that were discovered. And don't even get me started on how petty resentments between neighbors all of a sudden turned into accusations of murder, warranted or not.

The police in charge of the investigation didn't come off as particularly intelligent or sympathetic either. They seemed more interested in dismissing the missing persons reports because the women were prostitutes, then covering their butts after actual bodies were found. The one cop mentioned by name who is even remotely heroic or motivated is a canine cop named Mallia who, along with his dog, discovered the bodies in the first place.

I understand the book was meant as a commentary on how easy it is for women to sell themselves for sex in the internet age, and how dangerous their lives are. It was meant to humanize the faces of those who most of society considers, "throwaway people", prostitutes, drug addicts, the homeless. It was meant to show how callous and dismissive the police and society can be when these "throwaway people" go missing or are found murdered. But what came across to me most strongly was how pathetic and sad and similar these women's lives were.

And here's the thing: each and every one of these women made a choice. It may have been the best choice out of a bad bunch, but they still made it. Yes their childhoods were terrible, yes their families were dysfunctional and poor, yes they were probably doomed from the time they were toddlers. But their profession was their choice. And not a one of them didn't have the opportunity to make different choices. Did they deserve or ask to be murdered? Of course not. The killer deserves to rot for what he did, and may still be doing. But to hold all of society responsible for these women's deaths is ridiculous.

I'm giving this book three stars because a lot of it was very well-written, but there were enormous holes in the narrative. As others have commented, there is next to no firsthand information about the investigation itself. Sloppy as it seemed to the families and the media, I find it hard to believe that's the whole story. Second, the lack of pictures is a serious drawback, if only because it makes it that much harder to keep the women straight. This does them a huge disservice, and was part of the reason the author wrote the book in the first place, to make them known as individuals. A third problem is the lack of a conclusion. I understand the investigation is still ongoing, and that's no reason for journalists not to write about it, but a book would be more appropriate when there is more information.

Overall, it was a very sad book. And I feel like I need a shower after reading it.
29 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Peter twigg
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Australia on March 14, 2018
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fast and easy, no hiccups
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K. Marzillier
5.0 out of 5 stars A gripping and sober account that treats its subjects with respect
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2015
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Robert Kolker's Lost Girls is an excellent read with a serious purpose: to tell the stories of five murder victims who worked as escorts while ensuring that they are seen as the whole human beings that they were. It is a sober examination of the lives and intersecting deaths of five women, and a reminder of the complexity of real life, as opposed to the simple, morally unambiguous narratives of most fictional crime stories in books or on TV.

The book begins with Shannan Gilbert's panicked run from an escort out-call, calling 911 and banging on doors to ask for help, before she disappears into the darkness, never to be seen alive again. From there, Kolker winds back in time to delve into the background of the lives of Maureen, Megan, Melissa, Amber and Shannan and their families, exploring how they ended up working as escorts, their often-chaotic lives (many of the women struggled with addiction), and eventually their disappearance and death, and its effect on their loved ones.

The Long Island serial killer (or killers) has not been caught, and the book makes it clear just how easy it is for women who live on the margins to go missing without much of a fuss being made, with police and emergency services either seeing them as "just" a prostitute, or not believing that the women are genuinely missing, instead putting their disappearances down to their messy lives. The other bodies found in the area and the questions over whether this was the work of one or multiple killers are more than a little chilling.

Kolker interviews the families and friends of the women, local residents, suspects, and the police, taking as an objective a view as possible. His writing about the community near where the women were found evokes a strong sense of place as well as a sense of the close ties and simmering grudges of a small isolated town. He also draws a fascinating picture of the mixture of heartfelt support and infighting amongst the closest relatives of the victims once the bodies were found.

This is an excellent and well-written piece of longform journalism that avoids the schlocky tendencies of a lot of true crime books. The focus is on the victims' lives, not their deaths or the person who killed them. Bubbling under the surface is an indictment of how our society treats women who work in the sex trade, both in life and in death. Highly recommended.
3 people found this helpful
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smokey
5.0 out of 5 stars Real and depressing
Reviewed in Canada on August 20, 2013
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Agree entirely with first reviewer - could not have said it as well. We condemn these girls and treat them as disposable. The account of what happened to these escorts is factual and yet compassionate. It is thorough as far as we know and the author has organised the material remarkably well. Sad but true.
One person found this helpful
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Dennis Gazarek
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in Canada on January 21, 2017
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Fairly good overview of the Long Island Serial Killer mystery.
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Stuart M. Field
4.0 out of 5 stars This is what true crime should be...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 31, 2015
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This is a superb book analysing the deaths of 5 prostitutes. Unlike more conventional true crime narratives it focuses on the women more than the police. What Kolker does is humanise the girls showing the myriad reasons why they came to sell their bodies. It's a very human, heart-breaking book which explores working class life in modern America; shocking police attitudes to prostitutes and the suspects in the case many of whom are diabolical people out for publicity.

There is no gawky shock or cheap thrills. This is a book about five women that were murdered.
2 people found this helpful
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