Review | Claudia Rowe recalls her relationship with a serial killer

To understand why he had become a murderer, she developed a strategy: “If I was ‘real’ with Kendall he would be ‘real’ with me.” The fixation, which included face-to-face contact, would cost her the opprobrium of, among others, a boyfriend (soon to be an ex). Rowe probes Francois’ life as a black man in a predominantly white community, and his relationships with women, especially his mother, with whom he and his sister lived. It was in their putrid house that he stashed the bodies of the women. Rowe had wanted to be the “girl who could unlock Kendall’s secrets”. He wanted human contact. What both got was this book that, unfortunately, poses more questions than it answers.