Kathleen Hale

A compelling yet harrowing read that reveals how a seemingly innocent childhood friendship could lead to such a devastating outcome.

One of the best true crime books of the year

[Of the author's earlier work Kathleen Hale is a Crazy Stalker] Reminiscent of David Foster Wallace and Jon Ronson

Kathleen Hale's Slenderman is a haunting, powerful, accomplished and necessary book that is impossible to put down

Inside this intimate, plain-spoken masterpiece lies a haunted secret garden of feverish childhood fears and fantasies. It's a shadow world for which nothing can prepare you, and one which I doubt you'll ever be able to shake

Perceptively observed, compellingly researched, Slenderman is a fluent and stylish account of a childhood folie a deux and its tragic aftermath. Through careful first-hand research and personal interviews, Kathleen Hale exposes the destructive force behind this case--not the fictional supernatural Slenderman, but the monstrous failure of the judicial system when it comes to forensic mental health. Slenderman is a work of wise sympathy

Mikita Brottman, author of Couple Found Slain

Slenderman is a tour-de-force, a riveting and shocking read. On one level, it provides a remarkable reconstruction of a chilling crime, the stabbing of a twelve-year-old by two of her friends-a murderous assault that she somehow survived. And simultaneously, it is a frightful tale of how the state of Wisconsin dealt with the deeply disturbed young girls who committed the crime. The product of immense amounts of painstaking research, Slenderman is a gripping and utterly compelling account of two overlapping nightmares. You won't soon forget this book

Andrew Scull, author of Desperate Measures

A riveting and beautifully-written exploration of a tragedy, powered by rigorous reporting and equally rigorous sense of empathy. The Slenderman story that briefly obsessed the tabloids turns out to be about so much more in Hale's capable hands: Midwestern girlhood, early onset schizophrenia, the failures of our criminal justice system, and the uneasy power of childhood friendships

Rachel Monroe, author of Savage Appetites

As the first researcher into the case to draw extensively from transcripts of vital records, Hale has produced what stands as the most accurate account to date of this horrifying episode. This is a must for true crime fans

With clear-eyed prose and deep legal research... Slenderman is a skilled and detailed retelling of a story that still mystifies many years later... Hale's intervention into this recent saga of American moral panic is a fulsome, if sobering, story of misdirected pre-teen social angst and cyberspace obsession. Slenderman may have been debunked in the popular imagination but he lives on as an enduring metaphor for the shadowy corners of the internet and the corrupting danger that our online existences can have to our offline realities

A relevant true-crime cautionary tale as well as an urgent plea for mental health awareness

A Tragic Story of Online Obsession and Mental Illness

'A compelling yet harrowing read' Daily Mail 
'One of the best true crime books of the year' CrimeReads 
 
The 2014 Slenderman stabbings in Wisconsin, USA, shocked the local community and the world. The violence of Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weiser, the two twelve-year-old girls who attempted to stab their classmate to death, was extreme, but what seemed even more frightening was that they had done so under the influence of an internet meme, the so-called 'Slenderman'. 
 
Slenderman tells the full story for the very first time. Morgan and Anissa's friendship could so easily not have taken the turn it did - but Morgan was suffering with early onset schizophrenia. She believed she had been seeing Slenderman for years, and that the only way to stop him killing her family was to bring him a sacrifice. Her victim miraculously survived the attack but was left deeply traumatised, while the severity of their crime meant Morgan and Anissa would be tried as adults. 
 
Slenderman is both a page-turning true crime classic and a compelling search for justice.

Kathleen Hale

Praise for Slenderman

A compelling yet harrowing read that reveals how a seemingly innocent childhood friendship could lead to such a devastating outcome.

One of the best true crime books of the year

Book of the week

A compelling yet harrowing read that reveals how a seemingly innocent childhood friendship could lead to such a devastating outcome.

One of the best true crime books of the year

Book of the week

A compelling yet harrowing read that reveals how a seemingly innocent childhood friendship could lead to such a devastating outcome.

One of the best true crime books of the year

Book of the week

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