It’s been a while since I’ve read a true crime and I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I can’t wait to read more from this author.

Whoa. A little hard to get my bearings but once I did, wow. As a true crime enthusiast, I recommend this one to everyone in my circle. I was unaware of these crimes but did a deep dive after reading. There were some major discrepancies but overall it was well written.

Lauren gets into not only a murderer's head, but those of his family and victims, too, to paint a complete and terrifying portrait of a real-life monster. I highly recommend this book for any true crime afficionado.

In Behold the Monster: Confronting America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer, Jillian Lauren focuses on Samuel Little, a serial of color that has been underreported for so many years. She sheds light on his victims and gives honor to their memory.
Jillian Lauren had no idea what she was getting into when she wrote her first letter to prolific serial killer Samuel Little. Her research led her to believe that he was guilty of many more murders than the three he was convicted of. The two exchanged dozens of letters and held hundreds of hours of interviews. And she gained his trust. Little confessed to the murders of ninety-three women, often drawing his victims allowing police to connect many to the actual women. How did he evade justice, manipulating the system for more than 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 helped bring answers to many families. The least loved of women, prostitutes, those of color, and transgender, finally have some answers about their deaths.
Lauren’s research is detailed as she herself went to as many places to see the scene of the crimes and the body dumb sites. She speaks to a variety of professionals in the criminal field to understand more about Little and the reasons his long rap sheet of crimes never kept him off the streets until he was convicted of murder. She also gives voice to the voiceless after learning about the victims from their families and loved ones. She also made sure to turn over information to police and other professionals that would help them build their cases. But it is her relationship with Little that makes this stand out. She hears the stories from him and why he did what he did. While some may give her grief about her tactics, she beautifully plays this psychopath giving readers a frank look into the mind of a killer.
Lauren strikes her net a little wide though. She goes into deep details about many things trying to give you a definitive idea of everything. But many of these, such as VICAP, Cold Case squads, etc. only need a general knowledge to understand the book. These meanderings take away from the urgency of the story, the memory, and the sacrifice of Little’s victims. The book is long as it is and shortening these sections would have relieved some of the strain that comes from longer books.
Overall, I enjoyed learning about Sam Little and loved Lauren’s dedication to the victims and sharing their stories. This is a good trade paper choice for true crime fans.

I received an ARC for review; all opinions are my own.

True crime cases are so fascinating to me; especially learning about what makes a criminal do the things they do. This book allowed me to learn about Sam Little, a serial killer who is responsible for decades of killing women in plain sight. My thoughts on this book vary from appreciating the insight of the murders and writing them in first person to absolute disgust in the graphic descriptions of the crimes. Some of it went too far for my taste as I thought some of it was too technical for the average true crime reader. 3.5 stars rounded up.

Behold The Monster is an in depth story of the most prolific serial killer in the US, Sam Little. Jillian Lauren developed a rapport of sorts with Sam when she began interviewing him in prison. Through her interviews, she tried to help give closure to the families of Little’s victims. Some of what Little relayed to her was spot. In other interviews it seems that Little got his facts mixed up, a problem when you’ve killed so many women!

Lauren attempts to tell the victim’s story from the bits and pieces provided by Little, family members and cold case files. Although well written, I just had a hard time staying interested in the book. The story does jump around but most novels do. I found it to be somewhat monotonous. That being said, if you are interested in true crime you will enjoy the read!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book for an honest review.

If you're in the true crime space you may have heard the horror story that is the Sam Little case. The guy was a monster pure and simple.

Samuel Little was America’s most prolific serial killer with murders that spanned decades. With little known on his life, somehow Jillian Lauren was able to make a connection with Little. By gaining his trust, she was able to get information that lead to solving several open cases. As she dove more and more into Little, his life and the many crimes he committed, she was able to pull togethers so many details that were never known before. Over time, Little confessed to the murder of 93 women. In an incredible manner after so many years, he still could recall the smallest of details on each crime. What was frustrating is that Little evaded law enforcement for so many years and if he could have just stayed behind bars at any given time, so many women could have been saved.

Since the author bought in such a personal touch to this book, it was almost half memoir. She goes into her own traumatic experience which helped take the deep dive with Little. She did a great job about going into Little’s past as that certainly played a huge part into his life. For having the title of America’s most prolific serial killer, there wasn’t a ton on him until she was able to make that connection. Now, we know so much about his crimes and were able to help put families a little at ease by solving open cold cases.

Thank you Net Galley, Source Books & Jillian Lauren for the advanced copy for my honest review. This nonfiction, perfect for any true crime fan, is out and ready to be added to your TBR.

On the Cat Scale:
😺😺😺😺

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free ebook ARC of Behold the Monster: Confronting America's Most Prolific Serial Killer.

This nonfiction book tackles a very serious case that is ultimately very horrifying. While I find this type of serial killer book intriguing, this one was especially creepy with the details of how Sam picked his victims. If his stories are to be believed, he’s killed far more women than what the police have given him credit for; that means there are families out there that don’t even know their missing person was a victim of a serial killer.

There are plenty more facts like that to take in if you give this book a chance. It’s also interesting how the relationship between the author and the killer developed over time.

I highly recommend Behold the Monster for fans of true crime.

Thank you NetGalley for this copy! Wow! You can tell this is a super detailed book about a crazy killer! I really enjoyed reading this. All the details and effort that was put in is clearly shown. Highly recommend for anyone who loves crime reading or behind the murderer type reading.

I received Behold the Monster by Jillian Lauren as an arc from netgalley. Confused because it looks like this was previously published, not sure if it has just been updated with new information.

This is true crime embedded with an imaginary narrative created by the author to give some of the victims a voice so most of the book is factual however, I appreciated the fictional narratives. The foreword is written by fictional crime writer Michael Connelly.
Lauren sets out to interview the country’s most prolific serial killer, Samuel Little, a serial killer who claims to have murdered 93 women. Over half of these claims have been verified.
Four years of interviews with not only Sam but law enforcement, legal teams, cold case files, experts in psychology and DNA analysts has led to this well researched book that takes us to the beginning of Little’s life and the murders committed between the years 1970 through 2005. Little’s victims were mostly prostitutes or drug addicts who would either not be missed or looked for which led to his getting away with his crimes for multiple decades until his final capture.
I found this story compelling and well written although I thought it would have benefited from a little more editing and kudos to the author for not only talking about Little but to by giving voice and naming all his victims.
Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC.

Really enjoyed the focus on the victims - went further than most true crime when it came to exploring who they were!

I really loved this book and really enjoyed how Lauren actually went and interviewed Sam herself. It makes the story even more real than it already is knowing that there are direct quotes from the serial killer himself. The only thing that I would say that I wasn't a huge fan of was the fact that the book really jumped around a lot. Sometimes I wasn't sure who's point of view I was reading from. But overall, it was a well written book!

What a gripping and often times heart racing book! I could not put this down and was hooked from the beginning. The way the author weaved in and out of current to past accounts was seamless and made for a more interesting read. Though some parts were hard to read, I found it was done in a way that made sense for the book.

I would highly recommend this book to any true crime fanatic. Thank you Sourcebooks for the advanced copy of this book! It’s fantastic!

Through years of jailhouse interviews, prolific murderer, Samuel Little recounts his murder spree spanning 4 decades to author Jillian Lauren revealing ninety-three murders through strangulation!! Lauren re-tells her interactions with Little in Behold The Monster, as well, as giving a story and a name to some of those murdered by Little!

Through Lauren's interviews and research, she was able to assist cold case investigators in solving more of Little's murders and giving names and stories to previous Jane Does and assist with more convictions! Lauren also gives a detailed account of Little's childhood consisting of juvenile offenses and manipulation starting at a very young age. Through her immersion into Little's life, Lauren must also come to terms with his own manipulation of her even from a visiting room of the prison where Little is housed!!

Behold The Monster is a terrifying insider view of a monster of a person! Lauren does a nice job giving a story to a few of the unfortunate soles that crossed paths with Little and I did enjoy the thorough biography on Little including interviews with some of his remaining family members. Behold The Monster fell short for me though with it's choppy timeline and unnecessary descriptions of trivial items while being very unclear on other subjects. It felt that the book would jump from one thing to the next without a rhyme or reason and subjects would randomly be brought into various sections of the book without a purpose. With some cutting and editing, this book had more potential and Lauren does demonstrate the capability for a good non-fiction book but this one just didn't do it for me.

Thank you Netgalley and Sourcebooks for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I am a big fan of true crime works and I found this one interesting because I didn’t know much about Sam Little or his crimes. Aside from that though, I found this book to have little structure and jumped from topic to topic with little rhyme or reason. That put me off a bit but other than that it was ok.

How did we not know about this guy sooner? Thank you Jillian Lauren for bringing this serial killer to our attention. How he flew under the radar for so long is beyond me. I think the book was informative and provided interesting details about Samuel Little. I liked the conversational tone but I found myself at times forgetting who was talking and would have to go back and reread parts to figure it out. It also felt like it jumped around a bit too much. All in all I think the author brought an important story to light and for those true crime junkies you can't go wrong with a book about serial killer.

Unfortunately for me this is a DNF at this time. I am at 25% and I feel like this is so much fluff and no substance. I will take blame on that. I thought I was reading a true crime novel and not a mix of fact or fiction. I feel like the author was very ambitious and tried to tell the story from the victim's prospective but for me it didn't work.

I am still in shock from what I just read. Sam Little, was America’s most prolific serial killer, but he was unknown to the world the entire time he was committing his crimes. We all know the Green River Killer, the Golden State Killer, the night stalker and others because they had “nicknames” and police/ the media were tracking their murders. Sam Little had no one tracking him, He killed the people no one would miss, and he was constantly moving around the country so the similarities in his crimes were virtually untraceable. In 2014, thanks to DNA science and a cold case detective, Little was convicted of the murders of three California women. Reporter Jillian Lauren believed that Little had more secrets up his sleeve and began meeting with him in jail to find out the truth. Through her visits and phone calls she came to gain Little’s trust and would go on to hear 93 confessions from Little, 60 of which have now been confirmed by law enforcement. Little gave her a deep dive into his history as well as hand drawn portraits of the victims themselves. Jillian passes on Little’s story but also gives voice to the victims, she transports the reader into their minds so that they might imagine what their last hours on earth were like. Despite his excessively long rap sheet, and previous rape and attempted murder charges Little had an undetected 40 year killing spree that makes you question why the judicial system doesn’t treat sex crimes with stronger sentences. I have NEVER heard of a serial rapist/murderer who wasn’t first arrested or accused of some sexual crime early in his life. The overall story is obviously dark and it’s a little scattered which makes it hard to follow at times, but if you are into non-fiction serial killer exposé novels then this is worth the read.

I wanted to like this one, but I don’t. This feels so disjointed between the “based on a true story” parts and where the author is talking about her personal experiences. I wish she had stuck with one or the other, then I might be able to give this book a higher rating.

I and grateful to sourcebooks and Jillian Lauren for the ARC in exchange for an unbiased review. These are all my own thoughts.

The premise is really interesting, but as I said above the author needed to choose which way to go with all inspired by a true story or just her own experiences. Both were interesting but putting them together made it harder to read for me. I also didn’t love the use of slang such as “twinsie” and “bazillions”, it made it feel like the author wasn’t taking this as seriously.

My true rating would be a 2.5 if I could give half stars.