Behold the Monster: Confronting America's Most Prolific Serial Killer

by Jillian Lauren, Michael Connelly (Foreword by)

Overview

"Sam Little is the monster in this story and Jillian Lauren is the slayer. She is the one who stuck her nose into it, saw something was not right, was dreadfully wrong, in fact, and did something about it." —Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author

He was sitting right across the table... and he would have killed her if he could

Jillian Lauren had no idea what she was getting into when she wrote her first letter to prolific serial killer Samuel Little. All she knew was her research had led her to believe he was good for far more murders than the three for which he had been convicted. While the two exchanged dozens of letters and embarked on hundreds of hours of interviews, Lauren gained the trust of a monster. After maintaining his innocence for decades, Little confessed to the murders of ninety-three women, often drawing his victims in haunting detail as he spoke. How could one man evade justice, manipulating the system for over four decades?

As the FBI, the DOJ, the LAPD, and countless law enforcement officials across the country worked to connect their cold cases with the confessions, Lauren's coverage of the investigations and obsession with Little's victims only escalated.

New York Times bestselling author and lead of the Starz docuseries Confronting a Serial Killer Jillian Lauren delivers the harrowing report of her unusual relationship with a psychopath. But this is more than a deep dive into the actions of Samuel Little. Lauren's riveting and emotional accounts reveal the women who were lost to cold files, giving Little's victims a chance to have their stories heard for the first time.

"Jillian Lauren's devastating portrait of Sam Little and his innumerable victims is a journey into a darkness that is almost unfathomable; as well as an indictment of a failed justice system and the social decay that created a serial killer in the first place. Utterly gripping, this book will tear you apart." —Janelle Brown, New York Times bestselling author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781728293530
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	04/30/2024
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	130,993
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 5.40(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Jillian Lauren is the NYT bestselling author of the memoirs Everything You Ever Wanted and Some Girls, and the novel Pretty. She is married to Weezer bass player Scott Shriner. They live in LA.

Editorial Reviews

"Sam Little is the monster in this story and Jillian Lauren is the slayer. She is the one who stuck her nose into it, saw something was not right, was dreadfully wrong, in fact, and did something about it." — Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"Jillian Lauren employs a bewitching blend of empathy and brio, deep imagination and cold curiosity, to unleash a tale of horror that is also humane and self aware. This is a hard book to read, and even harder to put down." — Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Candy House

"Jillian confronts the man with the dubious honor of being America's most prolific serial killer. His revelations were gleaned due to Jillian’s work with Little, law enforcement, the Texas Rangers, and the FBI...she got this murderer to confess." — Joe Berlinger, award-winning true crime documentary filmmaker and producer

"It’s always been on my mind. How my sister died, who killed her and why. But now we know, thank the Lord. After all these years, the Lord has answered our prayers." — Deborah Duvall, sister of Alice Duvall

"The serial killer speaks—and so do his victims. Behold the Monster is a rare gem of a true crime narrative. Author Jillian Lauren pushes away spiders and cobwebs to take you deep inside the torturous mind of an apex predator while also adding a heart-wrenching dimension to the many lives he destroyed. The writing is crisp, disturbing and ultimately terrifying!" — Casey Sherman, New York Times bestselling author of Helltown

"Equal parts harrowing and imaginative, Behold the Monster looks straight into the face of pure evil and doesn’t blink. Jillian Lauren’s devastating portrait of Sam Little and his innumerable victims is a journey into a darkness that is almost unfathomable; as well as an indictment of a failed justice system and the social decay that created a serial killer in the first place. Utterly gripping, this book will tear you apart." — Janelle Brown, New York Times bestselling author

"Wildly original... True crime fans will find this a unique and disturbing thrill ride." — Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

★ 04/24/2023

Bestseller Lauren (Some Girls) recounts the murders of Samuel Little, America’s most prolific serial killer, in this wildly original blend of narrative nonfiction and true crime reporting. At the time of publication, officials had confirmed 60 of Little’s 93 jailhouse confessions, many of them told for the first time to Lauren, whose notes helped a national task force led by LAPD, FBI, and Texas Ranger officers close many of the cold cases. Attempting to give voice to Little’s victims, Lauren reconstructs their final hours based on her interviews with the killer, whom she first met after writing to him while he was imprisoned in the late 2010s in pursuit of a more traditional feature story. Interspersed between those harrowing episodes, Lauren recounts her time researching and interviewing Little before his death in 2020, at which point the killer named her his next of kin, giving her possession of his ashes and the few trinkets he still held onto. In vivid prose (“In Jungian terms, Sam wasn’t all shadow, but his shadow was definitely in the driver’s seat”), Lauren convincingly sketches Little, his victims, his relatives, and the lawmen and women who dedicated their lives to catching him. True crime fans will find this a unique and disturbing thrill ride. Agent: Charlie Fusco, TGC Worldwide. (July)

Publishers Weekly

This is a hard book to read and even harder to put down.”

Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselli Jennifer Egan

A true crime confessional…This story introduces us to scores of victims, previously unknown and unnamed. Women whom society forgot…but their killer never did. Lauren brings them into the light.”

author of The Good Nurse Charlie Graeber

Behold the Monster looks straight into the face of pure evil and doesn’t blink…A journey into a darkness that is almost unfathomable; as well as an indictment of a failed justice system and the social decay that created a serial killer in the first place. Utterly gripping.”

New York Times bestselling author Janelle Brown

Sam Little is the monster in this story and Jillian Lauren is the slayer. She is the one who stuck her nose into it, saw something was not right, was dreadfully wrong, in fact, and did something about it.”

#1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly

06/01/2023

Journalist Lauren (Everything You Ever Wanted) has written a mélange of fact and imagined truth in this true-crime book is about Samuel Little, known as America's top serial killer, who choked his victims and whose murdered approximately 90 women over six decades. Lauren first learned of Little by asking legendary LAPD cold case detective Mitzi Roberts which case she was proudest to have solved; at this point, Little was now in his late seventies and ailing in a California prison. In hundreds of hours of interviews, he told Lauren information that he had never shared with law enforcement. Lauren also embedded herself with detectives seeking to use DNA to solve the murders of marginalized women. The book devotes chapters to Little's victims, imagining how they died, along with excerpts from his California trials, which sealed his fate. Lauren seeks to honor the victims by imagining their lives and printing their photos. VERDICT Fans of true crime will relish this book. A good read-alike is I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara.—Harry Charles

Library Journal

2023-04-24
Lauren reflects on her relationship with a serial killer.

Samuel Little confessed to killing 93 women between 1970 and 2005. The FBI has confirmed his involvement in at least 60 of these murders, making Little the most prolific known serial killer in U.S. history. Before Little died in a Los Angeles prison in 2020, Lauren, the author of the memoirs Everything You Ever Wanted and Some Girls, exchanged letters with him and, ultimately, conducted hundreds of hours of face-to-face interviews over the course of a few years. This book is an amalgam of scenes from the author’s relationship with Little, records of her interactions with law enforcement, vignettes from her travels to understand the murderer and his victims, a memoir of this time in her life, and imagined narratives about the women Little killed. Attempting to give Little’s victims a voice through fiction makes emotional sense, and it might make artistic sense in a different kind of narrative. However, this is a nonfiction book, and this choice casts a cloud of confusion over the entire text. Re-creating important moments and filling the gaps between the known and the unknown with educated guesses is an important skill for nonfiction writers, but Lauren doesn’t make it easy for readers to understand when she’s quoting someone directly or when she’s making a guess at what they might have said. It’s not always clear when she’s relating something she knows because she was there or because she has solid documentary evidence—or, instead, cobbling together a scene from bits and pieces of information she’s gathered. The lack of any obvious chronological throughline also makes this book difficult to comprehend and appreciate. Perhaps the material worked better in Confronting a Serial Killer, a docuseries Lauren hosted on the Starz network. The book includes an introduction by Michael Connelly.

A true-crime grab bag.

Kirkus Reviews