In the history of news reports and documentaries in the US, there is no documented name‑bias serial killer. There is Rochester’s Alphabet Slayer, whose years of operation from 1971 to 1973 remain a mystery to homicide detectives, podcasters, and conspiracy theorists.
Then there’s Joseph Naso, a photographer whose crimes were driven by a sexual fixation on high heels and nylon stockings, and who targeted women with matching initials in their names, using strangulation, drugging, and rape as his modus operandi.
However, for the protagonist Riley Sparks in Stalking Susan, the perpetrator’s rage, driven by betrayal, initiates a chain of merciless murders of women bearing the same name, with drugging and strangulation as the preferred methods of killing.
Fate obscures Riley’s talent for investigative reporting with her longing for romance and for a partner who might fill the void left by her life as a lonely widow. Losing her husband to a tragic incident drives her into a state of aloofness on all fronts.
Despite the EMMY awards on her professional record, cracking a serial‑murder case becomes, for this journalist, a convenient form of psychological distraction. Yet for all her ruggedness and her defensiveness toward injustice, she becomes blindfolded by her own hubris. More than anything, it leads her into a perilous encounter with the very person she has been pursuing.
In the broader context, this book offers not only a close‑up look into the life of a television reporter but also an immersion into real‑time locations where events unfold.
Through short, script‑like descriptions of newsworthy moments, Kramer employs the procedural realism of a media professional. Likewise, featuring locations that still exist today creates a distinctive bond with the fictional narrative.
By challenging the imagination to distinguish what is false from what is true, the story may ultimately leave you mulling over the fictitious homicides that gripped Minnesota.
In a creative decision meant to feel accidental, the distraction is drawn toward you when an ad‑hoc investigative story is forced into Riley’s hands. Who wouldn’t enjoy a story about a quack finally facing justice for duping pet owners out of their right to a proper burial?
In the US, viewers consistently connect with dog‑related content more than with stories about human murders. Kramer notes this in Stalking Susan, giving us yet another villain to pin to the drawing board.
Yet despite our protagonist’s fearless nature in confronting another criminal, this decoy serves as a pellucid distraction rather than a genuinely intriguing twist.
The admirable attempt to resurrect the initial love plot that once sustained Riley should have remained a sequel, or at least been confined to the final paragraphs of her story.
Under the weight of his ambition, the retired police officer’s undeclared feelings arrive as a surprise. Garnett’s failure to identify the serial killer becomes an opportunity for the journalist, as his departure from the force transforms into a source of internalised guilt.
With confidential files passed on to Riley, his hopes rise for a reciprocal romantic bond in later chapters. A widow’s heart, predictably, is not easily swayed, just as the ethical framework she has upheld throughout the majority of her career.
Across the full arc of the narrative, Stalking Susan ultimately feels short on thematic depth as it approaches its ending.
The moment Riley confronts the insecurities of a psychotic widower who mirrors her own grief, the struggle for survival, her fight against the perpetrator, becomes aphoristic at its worst. The emotional buildup relies on rushed revelations that fall short at the story’s climax, a moment that should deliver the justice we have been anticipating.
In essence, the final sequence of events, kidnapping, an attempted murder, and finally suicide, chains the other missing victims and their families to the eternal torment of unresolved closure.
In a feat of excess, Riley’s workaholism protrudes into sentimentality that restrains her ability to bond with her own identity. Beneath the guise of a cutthroat industry, she displays barely a single major flaw. She knows how to conduct a stakeout without being noticed, remains acutely aware of her surroundings, and is well‑versed in local government and law enforcement. Whether intentional or not, perhaps these are precisely the traits that create that page‑turner momentum.
