No one had ever tried to look so deeply into the criminal psyche before, let alone compile and catalog data so that law enforcement officers like myself could more accurately profile and identify suspects, and more readily solve cases. And though the depth of the fixation on warped minds was disturbing to me, and the way the writers sometimes lingered over gruesome, sensational details, as I read something clicked for me and opened a larger question about the connection between victims and perpetrators.

I remember trying to talk to Frank about it over drinks near our offices one night, the dim bar seeming to bend around us on our stools, and the whiskey to flicker. “When you read a book like this, the violence starts to feel like a movie. The crimes feel like sick plots, not real life, and all the details are so lurid and specific. But it is real. And the victims, who just come through as names with thumbnail photos, just targets, we don’t know them at all. We never get the whole picture, how they got drawn into the story in the first place, how certain sets of experiences made them vulnerable, and not just in a general way either but to the particular predators who targeted them. That book would be fascinating, wouldn’t it? That’s the stuff I want to know.” I stopped there, catching my breath. Feeling everything I’d said and meant.

He looked at me for a long time. “Well, maybe you’ll have to write it one day.”

“Right. That’s going to happen.”

“Why not? These are good questions, and no one’s asking them. Not yet, anyway. This is obviously your lane, Anna. I’ve seen how involved you get in your cases, how much you care about the victims, how you try to understand their side of the story. It’s how you’re built, I guess. So why not feed it, and see what happens?”