The Sleeping Lady: The Trailside Murders Above the Golden Gate

I confess, as an avid hiker who has explored every trail in every park and open space preserve between San Francisco and Watsonville as well as up the old railroad grade at Mt. Tam and a lot of Point Reyes National Seashore, the detailed and meticulously worded descriptions of so many of these places touches me in a way others are less likely to respond to as strongly. And the times Mr. Graysmith speaks of when David Carpenter circulated in these colorful places were times I was there. Without knowing it, I sauntered past, by a few hundred feet, the yet to be discovered remains of Carpenter's victims at Point Reyes. Graysmith has a way with words: "At Mesa Junction, halfway up the mountain (Tamalpais), the track compressed itself into a double bowknot in order for the graceful 74,000-pound Shay engine with it's six red, open canopied observation cars and green cable car caboose to rise one hundred feet in the space of a thousand feet, paralleling itself five times, the track describing forty-two complete circles." I have hundreds of topographical maps for the San Francisco Bay Area. Anyone who likes maps as much as I do will be impressed by the numerous, amazingly precise maps Graysmith drew up for murder sites and trails and roads of the surrounding areas. I cannot imagine who could duplicate these efforts, all of which are like works of art. And his drawings of people and homes ARE works of art! Of course, most people do not buy this book to look at maps and artwork. In the course of 460 pages, we find out everything we would want to know about the dreadful Mr. Carpenter and the people who had the great misfortune to cross paths with him. I wonder how often, not only in the course of my extensive hiking in these parks, but elsewhere, I may have come close to running into this character, perhaps on the wrong day and the wrong place. I highly recommend this book, especially for those who are familiar with the Bay Area or who are drawn to it's magnificent landscapes. As a true crime narrative, it also delivers!

This is the story of one *extremely* disturbed miscreant and there's probably a very interesting book to be made of this degenerate's life and how he was enabled by the justice system.Sadly, this was not that book.Instead, Graysmith layers this work with *huge* sections of essentially extraneous detail and, when not extraneous, largely repetitive aspects of the conditions which (seemingly) provoked his subject's behavior. We get (little) sense of the horror he put his victims through, nor the obvious outrage against a system which continually freed him to prey again. In fact, what I was left with was the author's implication that the child molestation, rapes, robberies, jail breaks, attempted murders and actual murders were simply the products of this miscreant's abusive childhood. If the author wasn't satisfied by this explanation, I didn't see it in this book.None of this was helped by the author's style; a sterile recitation (often to a mind-numbing degree) of fact (after fact after fact). It is true crime reporting at its worst and if you enjoy true crime, you probably won't after wading through this hot mess. It's not that the author *can't* tell bits of an interesting story -- his description of Mount Tamelpais was actually quite absorbing -- it is just that he (apparently) chose NOT to do so with the remainder of the book and that makes this work all the more terrible.Don't waste your time with this book is my advice.

I like reading about what makes people tick even if it is beyond understanding. This book was good but rather disjointed, there were pages I had to reread but I kept on and finished the book because I could not put it down. The amount of research should give the author a 5 star. Sometimes you just stop and shake your head that there are people like this killer living in the same wonderful country we live in. The book gives great descriptions of the area where all these killings took place. I will never go to any of them again without being at full attention, even though the killer is in San Quentin (as far as I know).

The author has taken an immense amount of material and turned it into a compelling argument for conviction and sentencing of an evil man. His victims include the families of those he raped and murdered, the police officers and lawyers who worked as hard as they could to prevent the murderer from acting again.He has shown a man with nor deeming qualities, one who would kill or rape whenever he had the opportunity.The book is well crafted and well written and a very good example of what true crime is all about.

This book was as interesting as I had hoped it would be. But in all fairness the author did do a good job in detailing the facts and presenting them to the reader. I would still recommend this book to people who enjoy True Crime books. It do not like a lot of the real blunt facts of a case, which unfortunately means tell if or showing by photos the crime scene.

A true story, magnificently authored by Robert Graysmith. A must read for anyone that enjoys true crime. It was an elaborate, multi-faceted tale with so many significant details, and Graysmith presents it in a comprehensive and riveting manner. Every time I find a copy of this out-of-print book I buy it, because I so often recommend the book to people and prefer to not lend my cherished copy !

I found the story gripping, but the writing style was irritating. The story is fascinating and a compelling read but too many times the author got bogged down with strange and seemingly random details. What could have been a compelling narrative seemed at times, a typed set of research notes and other times just a straight cut and paste of transcripts.

When I read True Crime I want to know the WHY of a crime. Why did this person commit murder? What happened to this person that would cause a murderer to evolve? This book ticked the main boxes by going into those extreme details. The author details David Carpenter's early life and the lives of those around him. A fascinating telling of California's trailside killer. Thoroughly engaging book.

This is a very complex and haunting story.However Graysmiths style grates after a while.No tiny snippet of information is left out and the end result is an over elaborate, bloated and verbose effort.Far too much detail...almost like he was paid by the word like Dickens

Wow,Nice chap,what a story,those poor victims especially the two women who died together,lets hope he gets what he's due if not already had it, Joy Page England