Unbelievable is a truly shocking book by T.Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong. It begins with 18 year-old "Marie" (not her real name)reporting a rape in Seattle in 2008. Marie has lived an unsettled life in care and in various foster homes and doubts are cast on her story by those who know her and the police. Under pressure and with her honesty Marie changes her story and is then threatened with prosecution herself for making a false rape claim.

Over 2 years later in Colorado Detective Stacy Galbraith is investigating another rape and sees the similarities to another attack in a nearby town . Realising that they have a serial rapist on their hands the respective police forces join forces and uncover more and more attacks seemingly committed by the same man.

Saying much more would spoil the book for those who haven't read it but what follows is a riveting narrative of the manhunt for an extremely disturbed individual, I'd guess the first and only serious offender whose sickening reign of terror was initially spurred by a scene in Star Wars.

As well as the specific crime the book gives an insight into the appalling treatment of rape victims in the USA in the recent past, most shocking unlooked at evidence mouldering away in warehouses .

The book is explicit without being exploitative and importantly the victims are shown as often quite amazing people. The book does end on a good note with "Marie" finding closure and the happiness that had eluded her before her ordeal and in the immediate aftermath.

Big thanks to Netgalley, Random House and the authors for the ARC in return for an honest review.

I wanted to read the book after watching the fantastic Netflix adaptation and it doesn't disappoint. In fact, it enraged me further as to the treatment of young Marie. She was so terribly let down by so many people. "Unbelievable" is a wholly accurate (and depressing) representation of what women are faced with when reporting sexually motivated crimes, not just in the US but all over the world. I know this because I've been through it myself. In my experience, reporting was a complete waste of time and the fallout from going to the authorities continues to impact my life today - some 14 years later. I applaud (and extend my deepest gratitude to) the authors and to the policewomen who did what the men failed to do - though it's interesting to note that Marie spoke to a female Crime Scene Officer in the first instance. The female law enforcement officers did an excellent job but at the end of the day it was within the remit of their roles. We would do well to hold our police officers to higher standards of practice. It's shameful that this was allowed to happen to this young woman and even more so that bad practice permeates the service to this day. This is an important piece of work which feels like it's come at the right time. I live in hope.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars.

Unbelievable, at it’s heart, is Marie’s story. It’s a story of injustice, mistakes and chance discoveries. And it’s also about redemption, hope and compassion. Marie is violently raped in her apartment by a stranger. On reporting it to the police, the detectives involved choose to disbelieve her story, holding on to doubts cast by Marie’s foster mother regarding her ‘attention seeking’, and eventually force her to retract her statement and admit she lied. Except she didn’t. And her rapist would go on rape several more women before being brought to justice. It’s only through a series of chances, and the offenders mistakes, that Marie is brought back into the investigation.

I felt such rage reading Marie’s story. She was failed by both the people she trusted, and the people who were charged with discovering the truth. She’s incredibly vulnerable, and the detectives use this to manipulate the situation to the ending they want, rather than simply looking at the facts. Throughout the early chapters especially, Marie is shown without any form of judgement. We see her background, the hard upbringing she had in various foster homes and her struggles finding work and independence. She’s simply shown as what she is - a vulnerable young woman who didn’t deserve the treatment she suffered. Nothing is sensationalised for gratuitous reasons, and as the story evolves to include the other victims, the writers even go so far as to use particularly sensitive language in their narration (one disliked that term, and preferred to be known as a ‘survivor’), which I found touching, and demonstrated the level of care that went into writing this story.

I also enjoyed the way this goes beyond Marie’s story too. It explores how rape cases have evolved in the way the police collect evidence and deal with victims, going into detail about the first rape kits to help standardise testing and the impact of female officers and false reporting. It’s filled with facts and figures (some of them truly horrifying), and is very well researched. It also doesn’t set out to cast blame. It repeatedly praises the level of care and compassion Marie receives when she first reports her rape, and details the tireless efforts of the detectives who finally bring her rapist to justice. It highlights the failings in her case, yes, but also demonstrates the levels taken to understand why things went wrong, and how things can be changed to stop it happening.

A deeply emotional read, that is very well researched with remarkable writing, told in a more positive way than I was expecting. Highly recommend.

Unbelievable is a non-fiction book about a serial rapist who terrorised women, including -

Marie, an eighteen year old just out of the foster care system

Doris, a 65 year old woman working as a housemother at a local fraternity

Sarah, a widow who had only just recently buried her husband

And countless other women.

The story centres around Marie, in 2008 she reported she had been raped but within only a few days the investigation turned in to an interrogation of Marie herself. The police and everyone around her began to doubt her story so Marie admitted she had made the whole thing up and would go on to be charged with false reporting.

It’s obvious that the authors put so much work in to this book. It’s very well written, full of details and so much information about the case but it doesn’t read like a long, boring police report. It will keep your interest right until the very end. It’s a must read!

In 2016 Christian T. Miller and Ken Armstrong won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Writing “For a startling examination and exposé of law enforcement's enduring failures to investigate reports of rape properly and to comprehend the traumatic effects on its victims.”, with their article, ‘An Unbelievable Story of Rape’.

On August 11 2008, 18 year old Marie was brutally raped at knifepoint in her own home by a masked intruder. Barely a week later the vulnerable young woman was accused, and later convicted, of making a false report to police after she was intimidated into withdrawing her complaint by disbelieving officers.

More than two years later the capture of a serial rapist revealed photographs taken of Marie during her ordeal. She had told the truth.

In this accessible and utterly compelling narrative, Unbelievable (previously published as A False Report) expands on the original article written by Miller and Armstrong, delving into the investigation that finally caught the rapist and a history of the perpetrator, along with a brief exploration of the historical scepticism with which rape victims are viewed by law enforcement, and society at large.

Marie’s experience is heartbreaking and infuriating, and unfortunately not an isolated event then, or now. The thorough, objective investigation of rape allegations is crucial to ensure justice, both for the alleged victim, and the alleged accused.

Now the subject of a Netflix limited series, I highly recommend you read and/or watch Unbelievable, and demand that law enforcement and the justice system do better.

A fascinating book.

I was engrossed reading about this very interesting true crime case. I read quite a few short true crime books and compilations-this was a much more in-depth examination. Highly detailed, not just about the case, but lots of background too. There are other cases mentioned, the lives of the officers involved etc. Not unlike an Ann Rule book really-for me, the queen of the true crime genre.

The book centres around Marie, a young woman who has been raped. She reports the attack to the police. There is later doubt about her story. Could Marie have been telling the truth? How could it be proved? Marie had had hard beginnings. In the care system, countless foster homes. She really needs people to understand and sympathise now.

This sort of thing fascinates me. Forensics, DNA testing. Piecing the clues together, the puzzle. This is a very comprehensive and sometimes mind boggling set of facts and figures. Not a quick easy read by any means-and there are many reference notes, which I must admit I didn't want to keep stopping to look at-I just read it. It was a lengthy treatment which got me asking many questions as I read-and I enjoyed such detail.

Very interesting. I’d not thought of shoe prints before. I thought lots of shoes would be the same-but eg. some brands can be obvious from the sole-eg. Nike. Also uneven wear patterns/high arch etc. have their stories to tell.
Lengthy-sometimes a bit too much. It contains interview extracts with victims and the police officers involved. Also history of cases, going back quite a long while. Some chapters were very long-eg. 40 minutes. But, for the most part, it's was a very good and involving read. Well edited too.

This is based on interviews, documents and data. It must have been a lot of work pulling all this large amount of information together to make it into a book. A very good read.

Everyone should read this book.

The story is heart wrenching and it will make you so angry for Marie, the poor girl who is partially in the center of this story.
Netflix has now made a series about this, which I also recommend you would watch as soon as you can.

A hopeful 'must-read' that pays homage to the dedicated investigators and supporters who overturned a horrible miscarriage of justice for a rape victim who wasn't believed. Marie's story is, though, just one strand in a larger narrative about the hunt for a sadistic serial rapist - and almost reads like fiction, including interspersed sections from the mind of the perpetrator.

While this makes all kinds of points about the way rape is treated judicially it, unintentionally, contributes to an ill-informed and dangerous idea that there are levels of rape: these are so-called 'proper' rapes that happen to 'good' women raped in their homes by a dangerous stranger; the victims are described as reading their bibles before bed, some of them are older, one a pensioner. Sadly, as the book says, only 15% of rapes (is that reported rapes?) fit this model - the other 85% are 'acquaintance rapes' which, as we know, get a far more questionable response, certainly in the UK press.

Still, we shouldn't cavil at any book which strives to expose the iniquities, historical and contemporary, of the way rape victims have been/still are on trial in a way that other victims of crime are not. This is a gripping read as well as an important one.

An incredible book. The story told on these pages renforce exactly how important the #metoo campaign is. I ran a marathon of emotions as the investigation evolved. It's impossible not to feel anger and empathy for what Marie went through. It's a search for justice that must be read.