Robert Kolker is the author of Lost Girls and a contributing editor at New York.

"For better or for worse, my heart's not in the mystery. I want [the killer] to be caught—he's obviously a predator and he's unstable. But they all are. They're all messed up people who victimize other people and they all look normal. The art and science of catching serial killers has become more than slightly overblown in our society. And you know, I love Silence of the Lambs … but I'm not entirely sure that our obsession with who the serial killer is and why a serial killer does it is in proportion with how interesting they end up being."

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show notes:

@bobkolker

robertkolker.com

Kolker on Longform

Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery (Harper 2013)

[2:15] "A Serial Killer in Common" (New York • Jun 2011)

[5:15] "Long Island Serial Killer Victims Bond in Support Group" (Christine Pelisek and Roja Heydarpour • The Daily Beast • Apr 2011)

[10:30] "Kaboom" (New York • Mar 2013)

[22:15] "The Devil in David Letterman" (New York • Oct 2009)

[25:45] Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad (Brett Martin • Penguin 2013)

[26:30] Longform Podcast #40: Vanessa Grigoriadis

[30:00] Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx (Adrian Nicole LeBlanc • Nov 2010)

[42:00] "My Aircraft" (New York • Feb 2009)

[42:00] "I Did It" (New York • Oct 2010)

[47:30] "The New Prostitutes" (The New York Times • Jun 2013)

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