The Spider and the Fly - by Claudia Rowe (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

From the Back Cover

Poughkeepsie, New York, 1998. Eight women had gone missing in this small, sleepy upstate city. The police had a number of leads, including Kendall Francois, a large, awkward African American man repeatedly reported for attacking women whom he paid for sex. But Francois fit few of the familiar serial killer stereotypes, and detectives had largely written him off. Then Francois asked to speak with a prosecutor. Poring over photographs of numerous women, the soft-spoken man confessed that he killed several and stashed them at home--in the house he shared with his mother, father, and teenage sister.

Claudia Rowe, a young reporter, had heard chatter about the missing women. How could this local man have committed such brazen crimes? Even more perplexing, how could a family live seemingly unaware of rotting corpses in their home? Rowe embarked on a desperate search for answers. Over five years and through a series of letters, phone calls, and visits that consumed her life, she engaged with a killer in a dizzying conversation about cruelty, compassion, and control, digging down to the roots of her own obsessive need to understand evil.

A search to explain the darkest parts of human nature, The Spider and the Fly is an electrifying dissection of class, race, and crime that chills to the bone.

Review Quotes

"Extraordinarily suspenseful and truly gut-wrenching, The Spider and the Fly is not just a superb true-crime story but an insightful investigation of the nature of evil, the fragility of good, and the crooked road that can turn human beings into monsters. A must-read." -- GILLIAN FLYNN, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Gone Girl

"Part psychological thriller and part gut-wrenching memoir, The Spider and the Fly crosses boundaries on nearly every page. It is chilling, self-revelatory, and unforgettable." -- ROBERT KOLKER, author of the New York Times bestseller Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery

"Claudia Rowe catalogues her obsession with a serial killer so mesmerizingly that before I knew it, I too was obsessed...But this is not merely a recounting of a descent, it is equally a memoir of discovery through the lens of potential evil. I literally could not put it down." -- Alan Cumming, author of the New York Times bestseller Not My Father's Son

"Rowe's engaging prose means the pages practically turn themselves." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Readers seeking a literary look at the psychology of a criminal will find much to hold them rapt." -- Booklist