A hunger to kill A serial killer, a determined detective, and the quest for a confession that changed a small town forever

Kim Mager

Book - 2024

"In this fascinating & profoundly chilling account, Detective Kim Mager, a real-life version of Clarice Starling, reveals how she closed in on--and broke--one of Ohio's most infamous serial killers. On September 13, 2016, in the small town of Ashland, Ohio, emergency dispatchers received a 911 call from a terrified woman who claimed to be kidnapped. The man holding her hostage was Shawn Grate, a serial killer whom the press later dubbed "The Ladykiller." A key to his conviction and death sentence were Grate's extensive recorded confessions--all extracted by one woman: Detective Kim Mager. As an experienced specialist in sex offenses, Detective Mager was one of the officers assigned to Grate's case upon his ...arrest. Grate immediately latched onto her, repeatedly demanding to speak to her and presumably convinced that he could somehow exercise his power over her in much the same way that he'd overpowered and controlled his female victims. He was wrong. Over a period of eight days, Mager conducted one interview after another, risking her life by sitting alone in the interview room with a malevolent predator. Using brilliant psychological strategy in a lethal game of wits, Mager successfully elicited his damning confessions to five murders, kidnapping, and multiple sexual assaults of women across Ohio. Deeply personal and shocking, A Hunger to Kill takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most appalling criminal cases in American history from the woman who stopped his murderous rampage in collaboration with New York Times bestselling author Lisa Pulitzer"--

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Subjects
Genres
Personal narratives
Informational works
True crime stories
Published
New York : St. Martin's Press 2024.
Language
English
Main Author
Kim Mager (author)
Other Authors
Lisa Pulitzer (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
x, 310 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm
ISBN
9781250274885
  • Note to Reader
  • Prologue
  • 1. The Abduction
  • 2. Fair Week
  • 3. Jane Doe
  • 4. Alone in a Room with Evil
  • 5. A Confession
  • 6. Father Knows Best
  • 7. A Ticking Clock
  • 8. A Body in the Woods
  • 9. Jesus Loves Me
  • 10. House of Horrors
  • 11. Discarded Like Trash
  • 12. State Route 430
  • 13. A Narrow Escape
  • 14. "The Lord is Our Rock"
  • 15. Murdered over Magazines
  • 16. A Dangerous Demonstration
  • 17. "What the Hell Were You Two Thinking?"
  • 18. "The Devil's Good-Looking, Too"
  • 19. Friday Night Lights
  • 20. The Grate Deceiver
  • 21. Jailhouse Informant
  • 22. The Trial
  • Epilogue
  • Acknowledgments
Review by Booklist Review

Mager never intended to write a book, but after the Ashland, Ohio, detective had a tearful conversation with a bereaved mother, she knew she had to tell the real story, the story that the victims and their families deserved. One of those victims was a courageous Jane Doe who made a daring 911 call as her captor lay sleeping next to her. She cautiously guided police to the abandoned house where she was imprisoned and had been assaulted for three days. Jane's rescue would be the harbinger of her abductor Shawn Grate's demise. Grate, a ruthless serial killer who murdered five women, fixated on Mager once finally detained in 2015. He refused to speak to other detectives; only Mager would do. After eight days of strategic interrogation, Mager's psychological skills elicited a full confession that would earn Grate a death sentence. This book has all the hallmarks of a prime-time police procedural and Mager is a real-life Olivia Benson. Mager and coauthor Pulitzer capture the shock of a small town caught up in the story of a harrowing kidnapping escape and a murderer. Moving and methodical, this book belongs in the true crime canon.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Ohio police detective Mager's chilling true crime debut recounts her 2016 interrogation of serial killer Shawn Grate. Arrested after a woman escaped from his home in Ashland, Ohio, Grate was initially booked for rape and kidnapping. But as the hours ticked by and Mager began to question Grate, she realized she might have stumbled on the most consequential case of her career. Over the course of a week, Mager convinced Grate to open up to her, offering him cigarettes and coffee as he confessed to kidnapping and torturing one woman, then two, then five. As their conversations progressed, Grate shared details of his difficult childhood and his lifelong interest in serial killers, and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to confess to Mager. The interviews ended abruptly after a jailhouse informant came forward to warn Mager that Grate was planning to kill her, but she'd gotten enough to convict him; he was sentenced to death in June 2018. Drawing on her interviews with Grate, his escaped victim, and his half-sister, Mager delivers an unflinching study of a killer. This hums with the intensity of a real-life Silence of the Lambs. (July)

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