Fascinating case. I was hoping to hear a definitive answer to what happened to Elisa Lam. She is the young woman whose body was found in a water tower at the Cecil hotel. Hotel guests drank the water where her body was decaying. Although what happened to her is still a mystery, this author presents several theories about how she died and the origins of a mysterious video of her in an elevator. He compares his own history of depression and how he believes it compares to Elisa. Interesting book!

I had high hopes for this book as I followed the story when it was in the news. However, this book falls short. It starts out just fine but quickly falls apart. The author rambles on a variety of loosely related tangential topics including serial killers, other unsolved mysteries, a UFO conference, his own mental health and personal relationships, conspiracy theories, and a Kickstarter campaign to make a film. What could have been an interesting book about the Elisa Lam case ends up being a long and convoluted loosely about Lam and mostly about the author.

Gone At Midnight, The Mysterious Death of Elisa Lam by Jake Anderson was a really good true crime story of a very bizarre case.

I first heard about Elisa Lam from another fan of true crime almost one year ago to the day. I was instantly intrigued and read up on the story but this book provides a more detailed look. The place where this takes place is the Hotel Cecil in downtown Los Angeles. It has a very dark and creepy history, with violence and suicide as part of its claim to fame.

Twenty-one-year-old Vancouver student Elisa Lam was last heard from on January 31, 2013, after she checked into downtown L.A.’s Cecil Hotel–a 600-room building with a nine-decade history of scandal and tragedy. The next day, Elisa vanished. A search of the hotel yielded nothing. More than a week later, complaints by guests of foul-smelling tap water led to a grim discovery: Elisa’s nude body floating in a rooftop water tank, in an area extremely difficult to access without setting off alarms. The only apparent clue was a disturbing surveillance video of Elisa, uploaded to YouTube in hopes of public assistance.

As the eerie elevator video went viral, so did the questions of its tens of millions of viewers. Was Elisa’s death caused by murder, suicide, or paranormal activity? Was it connected to the Cecil’s sinister reputation? And in that video, what accounted for Elisa’s strange behavior? With the help of web sleuths and investigators from around the world, journalist Jake Anderson set out to uncover the facts behind a death that had become a macabre internet meme, as well as a magnet for conspiracy theorists.

In poring through Elisa’s revealing online journals and social media posts, Anderson realized he shared more in common with the young woman than he imagined. His search for justice and truth became a personal journey, a dangerous descent into one of America’s quiet epidemics. Along the way, he exposed a botched investigation and previously unreported disclosures from inside sources who suggest there may have been a corporate conspiracy and a police cover-up. In Gone at Midnight, Anderson chronicles eye-opening discoveries about who Elisa Lam really was and what–or whom–she was running from, and presents shocking new evidence that may re-open one of the most chilling and obsessively followed true crime cases of the century.

The book was so well written, researched in-depth and provided a lot of details. I know that my fellow true crime junkies will like reading it however, you cannot help but have compassion for Elisa and her family as her death was such a tragic occurrence.

This book comes out on February 25! Pre-order here.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book.

I was so excited to get this title, and immediately started reading it. Alas, I was soon disappointed to the point I couldn't even finish it.

Let me explain. I thought I was getting a true crime book about the Elisa Lam case at the Cecil Hotel. That's the blurb that caught me. Had the book stuck with this case, I would have gladly finished it. Instead, the author started injecting his life story into the book, making it more about himself than Elisa. It felt as though he used her mysterious death to tell his own story, and frankly, that pissed me off enough that i stopped reading it.

If you are looking for a factual, true crime novel, this isn't it. Instead, it's using the hype of a popular mystery for an author to tell his own story. I don't recommend it.

The author wrote as much of his own life as he did about Elisa Lam and her tragic disappearance. This was disappointing.

I really liked this book on the Elisa Lam death and mystery because the author investigates it very thoroughly. The case is better covered in this piece than anywhere else. He uses the fact of Elisa's psychological health as a structural element, wherein he dovetails her experiences with his own form of bipolar disorder, often discussing what he thinks Elisa may have been going through, bouncing it off his own knowledge of the disorder.
Both of them stayed at the notorious Cecil Hotel, where she died in the watertank on the roof. He interviews many people who were peripherally involved. He also includes interviews with people who know the ins and outs of LAPD, also notorious for corruption, which may play a hand in this case.
Typos are my pet peeve and I'm thrilled to say somebody got a proofreader or an editor onto this one, which hasn't got any! Polished and professional, this book should go places. It includes a lot of speculation, true, but also lots of facts. One can't approach this subject matter without expecting to lay out speculation, since the Lam is awfully mysterious with more unanswered questions than 10 other cases combined.
I saw a comment stating that the book is too long. It is true that it is probably 100 pages too long in the summing up, because we already know that there aren't any answers. The author reconstitutes all the ideas previously detailed. Other than this the book is very compelling.

The disappearance and death of Elisa Lam on February 19, 2013 from the infamous Cecil Hotel in downtown LA is one of the most scrutinized and mysterious cases of the past decade, in no small measure due to the lack of transparency by the LAPD and the hotel management up to the present time. In investigating and researching this case Jake Anderson embarks on a foray over many years into not only the mysterious death and its surrounding circumstances and context but also into the often murky but ever evolving field of mental illness, in the process making stunning discoveries about his own life and struggles with depression and bipolar disorder.

The author does an excellent and through job researching this case and imparts a significant amount of interesting information about the theories behind this case consulting with large number of web sleuths and people tangentially associated with either Elisa or the hotel and police. He studied Elisa’s online blogs and social media revealing the complex yet clearly confused and disturbed mind of a young woman searching for her identity and personal peace. He treats these discoveries with the utmost respect and caring. He dissects the theories put up by conspiracy theorists and also gives us a rather well condensed history of the LAPD at that time and their culture of corruption and history of cover-ups. As so much was done wrong when this case was investigated we still don’t know the entire truth but the author thinks the answer is out there and waiting to be found.

The only complaint I have about the book is the length as the author has a tendency to be repetitive and can jump from topic to topic very abruptly. Additional editing would be helpful to tighten up the narrative. While I felt the author’s personal asides were at times outside the scope of the book it was a nonetheless a great way to show how mental illness affects our sense of ourselves and our reality and it has direct relevance to Elisa Lam and the background of this case.

Overall this was a very well researched and well written book. I was impressed me with the level of concern and sincere interest the author showed for the victim and his strong desire to continue searching for the ultimate truth.

First off, everything involved with this case feels creepy to me, which is a feeling that persisted while I read this book.

Having said that, I can honestly say that I cannot remember the last time I read a book that held such potential, only to fall apart, almost from page 1.

The author is literally all over the place with this story. He is in the past (when the event happened), then he goes even further back in time, then he mixes the past with his current timeline, then we are in a "what if" scenario that may never have happened and then we are in one of his dreams and I found myself completely confused.

He also went off on tangents all the time. Early in the book, ee explains about the involvement of k-9s during the search, which quickly turns into a way too long history on the use of k-9 dogs in criminal cases. Then he wanders off topic when he starts talking, again in too much detail, about serial killer Ramirez. Yes, there is some pertinence to him talking about Ramirez because he stayed at the Cecil at some point - wayyyyy before Elisa Lam was there, but all of the detailed backstory on this murderer is not necessary. If I want to read about him and his crimes, I can pick up another book.

The other issue I had is that the author kept intermingling his own personal issues with the case and with Elisa. Yes, I know that he obviously was attracted to this case, in part because of the shared mental illness that they both share and suffer. But, wow, there was way toooooo much information on the author and his personal life, that frankly, just removed from the story. He could have simply spent a paragraph explaining the shared illness and moved on. But, it was pages and pages of "I am dreaming, I am losing it, I am, I am, I am" and none of this was necessary to the story.

The one thing that the author did very well is describe the hotel while actually staying there on two occassions. He made the whole Cecil come alive with his descriptions and he managed to convey a real sense of dread and creepiness. He could have written a whole book on the Cecil and I would have read it.

In the end, while the author did bring up a few unknown facts, there isn't much he can do with them as absolutely nobody seems to want to investigate this further. Perhaps there is a conspiracy, but at this point, he only brings up more unanswered questions with very few chances of ever getting an answer. I am not even sure what he thinks happened.....as there are so many back and forth theories, involving so many different people and he is not really clear with what he things is the real story.

Ultimately, this is a very sad book. It never needed to happen - any of it and Elisa would be back home, living her life. But it did happen and I do hope that her family and friends have managed to find some peace.

As for this book, if you can get it at the library, go for it, otherwise.....not so much.

The author of this book is a huge fan of true crime and whodunnits! However, as an author he leaves MUCH TO BE DESIRED!
The author takes a fascinating case and makes it as boring as watching paint dry. He goes off on tangents and asks more questions then answers.
This was a complete and utter waste of my time.
I learned nothing new of the case and I strongly urge anyone thinking of reading this book to just watch the Youtube video of the young lady in the elevator.
Very disappointing.

An interesting book that delves into the mysterious death of a young woman in a Los Angeles hotel. The author is careful to be considerate to Lam and the remaining family, however this book suffers from a severe case of "whodunnit?". With no killer confessing (if murder) or notes left behind (if suicide), the author is forced to recreate certain events with nothing but the bare facts and some imagination. While certainly containing some information of the case that I had never known before, this book ends up feeling like it was padded out to hit a character limit when the case itself is rather bare bones. Still, a very interesting read and definitely worth picking up!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I live in Los Angeles, and have been following the Elisa Lam story from the beginning. I was so excited that someone finally wrote a book about it. Gone at Midnight really digs deep into the case and uncovers previously unknown information. This is a great read for anyone interested in this case.

I hadn't realised when I requested this title that it was just an excerpt, so is difficult to review. I knew nothing about the case, and still feel I know very little partly because the prose feels quite rambling at times and tends to jump from one subject to another. Maybe a full story will be better and allow the narrative to progress better.

I didn't realize, until my ARC was going by waaay to quickly, that what I received is just an excerpt. Didn't learn anything more from the excerpt than I already know, but I did enjoy Anderson's writing and it looks like it will be a good one. Will continue to follow.

Can’t wait to read the whole book!

Appreciate that the writer has given context as to what else was going on at the time that Elisa Lam went missing.

I must have been living in a cave as I only heard of the case via an Australian true crime podcast last year.

Looking forward to the full galley of Dark Waters - The Mysterious Death of Elisa Lam by Jake Anderson. An engrossing true crime thriller!