I received and advanced copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is well written. TRIGGER WARNINGS for SEXUAL ABUSE AND DRUG ABUSE. I would highly recommend this book. It was a good true crime book. It is in stores now for CA $37.00 (CAD).

This book was definitely trying to be a new version of The Stranger Beside Me - the author was "babysat" by Tony Costa when she was a kid spending summers in Provincetown, MA - and she only found out, much later, that Tony Costa was a serial killer who murdered four women, dismembered them, and buried them in the nearby woods. Oh, and when he was watching her and her sister, Tony took them to that same spot in the woods once or twice. I get it - I imagine that it's definitely creepy, unsettling, and a little traumatizing to realize that someone you looked up to and spent time with as a kid killed people, and maybe could have killed you too. But the story really isn't much more than that.

The narrative style of the book rotated chapters between a well-researched biography of Tony Costa's life, piecing together his childhood and adult life as best as possible, and a memoir of Liza Rodman (the author's) life, mostly focusing on her mother's abuse. The Tony Costa chapters were a lot more interesting and twisted, especially as you learn about his sexual abuse as a child, his abuse of his young wife, and of course, his eventual murders. I still can't quite understand how, when he was accused of the murders, many people came out and said that they could never imagine him doing such a thing - because he seemed like nothing but a drug-addicted creep to me.

I don't want to belittle or make light of Liza Rodman's childhood trauma, because I could not imagine being in her shoes, with a mother as verbally, physically, and emotionally abusive as hers. However, her life story's intersection with the premise of the book - her summers with Tony Costa - are quite a minor detail. She didn't seem to have actually spent that much time with him overall, and she didn't even know that he was a serial killer until much later in her life (her mother, though, knew at the time, as it was big news in Provincetown). The two stories really feel like entirely separate narratives.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley.

True crime and personal memoir converge in this suspenseful story of a serial killer who happened to be the babysitter of a young girl and her little sister. Rodman tells the story of her rough childhood with an abusive and neglectful mother who often let the girls ride with said.serial killer on errands while he was a handyman where the mother worked. Well written and merges both genres well. Captures the history of the timeframe. A story you won't forget.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley

This was so fascinating. As a journalist and a true crime junkie, I was surprised that I hadn't heard of Tony Costa before. I'm normally opposed to authors inserting themselves into true crime stories, but the way Liza's and Tony's stories interwove was endlessly interesting, and Liza Rodman is an extremely talented and captivating writer.

**3.5-stars rounded up**

The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer is part-Memoir, part-True Crime novel, told by Liza Rodman.
Alternating between Liza-chapters and Tony-chapters, this book tells of Liza's early life and her interactions with the serial killer, Tony Costa. It also delves into details of Tony's life and crimes.

Liza was just a girl when her summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts, brought her into contact with Tony; a young man she greatly admired. Liza's mother frequently let her two daughters go off with Tony, a coworker of hers at a local motel, to run errands. He would often buy the girls popsicles and take them on rides in his truck to the Truro Woods.

The two portions of the book were quite distinct. Liza's early life was troubled. She never felt wanted or loved and it felt like the sections detailing her life were somewhat of a therapeutic exercise for her. Tony's sections follow his life from a fairly early age, up through his imprisonment and death. This is definitely an interesting book. I live on Nantucket, off the Cape, so am quite familiar with the areas detailed here. It sounds like the Cape of 1960s was a wild place to be.

It took me a while to get used to the alternating perspectives, the flow felt a little off, but overall, I am happy with it. I think if you like both Memoirs and True Crime, the melding of the two genres is actually quite pleasing.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Atria Books, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review. I appreciate it very much!

I loved this book! It was told in alternating chapters. One chapter described the twisted actions of serial killer, Tony Costa. The other chapters were told in the voice of a lonely little girl named Liza. Liza was oftentimes alone with Tony as he made mysterious dump and forest runs. She grew up in a completely dysfunctional home and her Mom would use Tony as a babysitter. What a read!

The Babysitter is a riveting and haunting hybrid of memoir and narrative nonfiction that is sure to find fans of true crime engrossed. I was pretty much equal parts horrified and fascinated while reading this one. Reflecting on my own experiences with beloved babysitters made it easy to connect with Liza. Her unique perspective is fascinating.

Thank you to Net Galley and Atria Books for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Yowzers!! What a story. I don’t know what I was expecting when I got this Arc from Netgalley & Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan, but wow it really blew me away. I literally was hooked from the start. I didn’t realize this was part memoir and part true crime at first but I absolutely loved the way the author told this story. Liza Rodman, was a young girl in 1960’s, living with a very cold mother and her sister. She has a father who was never around and grandparents that were flawed, to say the least. During the summers her mother, would pack them up and head to Cape Cod to work at a hotel. The girls, liked the change of scenery and were amazed about the cast of characters, their mother let them hang around. The first summer their, Liza is really trying to find her way. She is young but has heard many grown up conversations, yet she doesn’t know how to filter her thoughts between the two. She loves attention and this summer their is a worker who gives her a lot of attention. Tony Costas, shows up for work at the hotel, that summer and he is very kind to Liza. She spends many days with him and has many conversations with him. He never seems to let her down, like most of the adults in her life.
Tony is a mess though. Can’t hold a job, father of 3, divorced and never has a dime to his name. He is known up and down the Cape as a good man. Nobody really looks into his dark behaviors and he is able to stay under the radar and out of trouble. I love a good crime story and The Babysitter was so well written, it was a pleasure to read. I loved how the author went between Liza’s point of view and Tony’s. She was able to seamlessly tell this story and I for one couldn’t stop reading. This is one of the few books I have read in 24 hours. This was a five star read for me.. I have recommended it to friends and family, so that they can read and we can speak about it.

”Close your eyes and count to ten,” he whispered. I felt his breath on my cheek. The barrel of the gun was hard and cold against my forehead.
I counted, and when I opened my eyes, he was gone.

I sat up quickly in bed, gasping, my body soaked with sweat. What the hell was that?

Thus begins The Babysitter, a telling of growing up unaware that one of the author’s favorite adults was not who she’d thought.

In 2005, Liza Rodman, then in her forties, was working on the thesis for her undergraduate degree when she began having frequent nightmares. It was not her first such experience. She had had these for a long time, but all of a sudden they were happening every night. In one, her husband was trying to kill her with a fireplace poker. Another featured a man killing nurses and eating their hearts. The dreams kept coming, with a faceless man chasing her, always with a weapon. She would wake up as her dream self was about to crash through a window, fleeing for her life.

Clearly there was motivation to figure out this puzzle, so she started writing about them, incorporating them into her thesis, over a two year period, drawing out more and more details. One dream-site was The Royal Coachman motel where she, her mother, and sister had lived for a time in Provincetown. Another was Bayberry Bend, a P-town motel her mother had owned.

Slowly the process moved along, six months of regular dreams, more images, months more of nightmares, until she saw the face, a familiar one, someone she hadn’t seen since she was a kid, a handyman hired to work at the motel where her mother was employed. His mother worked at the motel too. He was one of a series of people who took care of her and her sister, a really nice guy, one of the few adults who were kind to them, who never yelled at or hit them, who took them around with him in the motel’s utility truck, on chores, to the dump, to his garden in the woods, but who had disappeared when she was ten. This was not all that unusual for the adult males who scooted through her childhood. Why would she be having dark dreams about that guy? So she decides to ask her mother, then in her 70s, what this might all mean.

“Did something happen to me back then that you’re not telling me?” I said, suddenly wondering if it did.
“What do you mean, happen to you?”
“With Tony Costa.”
“Tony Costa? Why are you still thinking about him?”
“I wasn’t until I had a nightmare about him.”
She was quiet for a moment too long, and I stopped stirring and waited. Mom rarely paused to contemplate her words, so I watched, curious as to what was going to come out of her mouth.
“Well,” she said, watching the gin swirl around the glass. “I remember he turned out to be a serial killer.” She said it calmly, as if she were reading the weather report.

Oh, is that all? Not all that surprising from Betty. Liza’s divorced mom was not exactly the best. While she did manage to keep body and soul together for herself and her two girls, she was frequently cruel to Liza, for no reason that the child could fathom. Mom, in fact is a major focus of the book, as chapters flip back and forth, more or less, between a focus on Tony and a focus on Liza and her relationship with her mother.

Who was this guy? Tony Costa never got to know his father, who had drowned trying to save a fellow seaman in New Guinea near the end of World War II, when Tony was only eight months old. He would be obsessed with his war hero dad for the rest of his life. There were early signs of trouble with Tony. At age seven he claimed to have been visited regularly by a man in his bedroom at night, an actual intruder? a fantasy? an obsession? He said the man looked like his father. He stood out among his peers during summers in Provincetown, his mother’s birthplace, cooler, smarter, and more “inside himself” than anyone else, according to a kid he hung out with there. Then there was the taxidermy kit. Lots of killing of small animals, neighborhood pets going missing, yet never a successful display of a stuffed animal. There is no mention of bed-wetting in his psychopath Bingo card, but who knows? We know he was raped as a pre-teen, and was probably one of several victims of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest in Provincetown. So his potential for madness certainly had some outside assistance. He was accused of attempting to rape a young girl as a teen.

Tony was smart and handsome, but had terrible judgment, a ne’er do well, capable at work but unable to hold onto a job. He became a heavy drug user and local dealer. Clearly this guy had some charisma (as well as a considerable supply of illegal substances) and a way with young teens. A pedophile who married his pregnant fourteen-year-old girlfriend, he kept a crowd of young acolytes around him unable or unwilling to see through his line of distilled, grandiose, narcissistic bullshit. Cult-leader stuff. There is a Manson-like quality to him. And, like most narcissists, he was never willing to accept any responsibility for his own actions, always insisting that people were out to get him, blaming others for things he had done.

There is more going on here then personal profiles of the major actors. A lot is made of how different from the mainstream Provincetown was, particularly during the tourist season. The ethos was much more accepting of whatever than most places. With people coming and going so much, it was custom-made for a predator. It was the 60s, man, drugs, sex, and rock ‘n roll, and kids taking off for adventures, whether drug-related or not, and thus not necessarily raising instant alarms when they went missing. In 1971, for example, I bought an old Post Office truck at auction for three hundred bucks, and drove across country with three friends. (well, tried, we never actually made it across the continent) No cellphone, no regular check-ins. We didn’t exactly file a flight plan. If we had come to a bad end, no one would have known, or been alarmed back home for weeks. This is something a lot of people did. Of course, we were not runaways, and we were not female. That would have been a whole other order of business. The cops in Provincetown took a lackadaisical attitude toward worried parents looking for missing progeny. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they will turn up in due time.” And they were probably right, mostly. Except, sometimes they weren’t. It took a lot of pushing from those concerned about the missing young women to get the police to pay much attention. Rodman and Jordan provide a very detailed look at the various police departments that became involved in Tony’s case, both the occasional good police work and the ineptitude of inter-departmental communications. Sound familiar?

The locals were slow to allow for the possibility that there was a killer in their midst. Even today, there is an urge to protect one of their own, despite it being fifty years since the events of the book.

“I got threats when I wrote this book,” Liza says. It’s a loving portrait of the town, but not especially flattering. “I have a comfort level there that I don’t have anywhere else. Even in the face of this book.” - from The Provincetown Independent

One of the things about true crime books is that there is an element of suspense that is lacking. We know that little Liza will grow up to write this book, so we know that Tony did not kill her. This makes it more like a Columbo episode, knowing that the bad guy will get got, but enjoying seeing how that ultimately happens. That said, this is not a straight-up true crime effort. It is a fusion of true crime with memoir. Half of the book is about Liza’s childhood, her relationship with her mother in particular. It is an interesting look at how someone can survive a bad parent-child relationship. Showing how things were for Liza at home makes her a more sympathetic narrator for the other story. Geez, ya poor kid. I sure hope nothing else bad happens t’ya. And it makes it much more understandable how a kid who was starved for adult affection and attention would be drawn to an adult who was offering kindness and interest.

I did not get the frisson of fear reading this that pervaded in another true crime book, I'll Be Gone in the Dark. Maybe because the killer in this one was long ago jailed, whereas the California killer had not yet been arrested when that book came out. But there is a certain vertigo, like walking near a cliff edge, blindfolded, only to realize the danger you were in when you take it off. It is distinctly possible that Liza might have found her way into Tony’s special garden if he had managed to stay out of jail for a few more years. Liza was like the little girl playing with Frankenstein in the movie, not realizing that Frankie was more than just a large playmate, and seemingly friendly soul. Whew!

Rodman had been working on this project for about thirteen years. It happened that, in 2018, Jordan, a professional writer, was casting about for her next book project (She had previously published four books.) when she thought of her dear friend, Liza, (they had met in college) who was thrilled at the suggestion that they collaborate. So, sixteen years of research in all and here it is. An in depth look at a monstrous series of events, a sick individual, an interesting place in a time of upheaval, a difficult childhood, an odd friendship, and a very close call. The Babysitter is an engaging, informative read that will make you appreciate your sane parents, most likely, and appreciate your luck even more in never having had such a person as Tony in your life. (You haven’t right?)

"His coterie of teenagers, his stash of pills, and his marijuana helped mask his ever-increasing feelings of inferiority; by surrounding himself with idolizing acolytes who needed a hero, he could feel more in control, sophisticated, confident, and, of course, more intelligent."


Review posted – March 5, 2021

Publication date – March 2, 2021

I received an ARE of The Babysitter from Atria, via NetGalley, in return for an honest review. I did not charge them my usual rate of ten bucks an hour and whatever I want to eat from their fridge.

See my review on Goodreads for a fuller review, with images

The Babysitter by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan is part True Crime and part Memoir, and that is what appealed to me when I first read the blurb about it. But I have to admit I am struggling with how I feel about this book. It just didn't flow for me. On one hand you have a child who was neglected and abused physically and mentally. That alone would have made a book worth reading. But then you add in a serial killer who happened to be her babysitter and the book just takes a turn that makes it hard to read. Tony Costa was a young man who, from the authors research, was on just about every drug known to man Who hung out with kids who were way younger than he was and who didn't mind have a 7-8 year old little girl hang out with him while he drove around working. The red flags were all over the place and EVERYONE ignored them.

I just think that the two different stories by themselves are ok, but when you try to meld those two together, it lacks on cohesiveness.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Ok this one is wild! Part memoir part true crime, this was a chilling and creepy story of a serial killer and the girl he used to babysit 😳😱🤯

It flips back and forth between Liza, a lonely child who recalls Tony with fond memories as he was one of the few people who gave her any sort of attention and then Tony as it details the life of a strange, delusional and creepy serial killer. Liza didn’t even realize Tony was a killer until much later in life and I just found the whole thing so fascinating. It was very well written and researched, having never heard anything about Tony and his crimes before I was super intrigued. Definitely a unique true crime read, the chapters from Liza’s POV during her childhood were both heartbreaking and riveting. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Imagine your mom just let anyone babysit you and your sister. No then imagine you found out one of those people had turned out to be a convicted serial killer. That is the story here. In a book that has, rightly, been compared to the works of Ann Rule, we get the story of someone who knew a completely different side to the serial killer the Cape Cod Vampire. It is always chilling to think that there are those among us who kill and dismember other human beings. It’s much worse to see that person as just an ordinary guy through the eyes of a child.

Excuse me as I pick up my jaw off the floor.

When I finished reading The Babysitter, I was left speechless and in awe. Told as part memoir / part true crime novel, The Babysitter is a unique take on an otherwise grim tale. Liza's memory of Tony Costa as her babysitter and her friend is absolutely fascinating and equally horrifying. Her tale is told from the perspective of a girl who was so starved for attention and love that her happiest memories were with a murder. I mean, what the actual ----.

The Babysitter will leave you with one question: how would you feel if the one person you thought was in your corner was actually a serial killer? Liza Rodman, you truly are lucky to be alive.

Hard to believe this is someone's life! Liza is lucky to have survived her childhood. Not only her exposure to Tony but her mother's carefree lifestyle.

I wasn't a fan of the dual narrative in this book because it wasn't truly written by both people. The story provided about Tony isn't from him which made me rate the book a little lower.

I enjoyed this book, but understand the opinions of others who say they wish it had been more about the serial killer and the killings than about the summers spent with a budding serial killer. I believe it is important to have books that not only focus on the crimes themselves, but the whole life of the criminal. The Babysitter is an important addition to the true crime canon for this reason.

A true story co written by the author who lived and was cared for by a serial killer. Chilling, haunting, and bizarre must read. Netflix are you paying attention? This needs a script soon. Highly recommended

This took me way longer to finish than I would have liked. I'm blaming it on the book being in kindle format. I have no idea why but I have trouble reading in kindle format now. The book itself is a cross between a true crime novel and a memoir. It was a bit disturbing at times and if I am being honest I had a hard time finding parts of it believable. Not the parts about Tony Costa, I knew all of the sick and twisted truths about him (unfortunately) But were were we some of what the author is telling us is about her life is so off the wall and crazy that I just had a hard time believing it. Sure, I guess it can be true but I just had to wonder if she felt the need to compete with the crazy of Tony Costa because he was such a horrible person that she had to embellish some of her own truths. Either way, it was quite a gripping read and enjoyable if not disturbing and sad. If Liza's life was led like she explains I feel sorry for how she was treated...no child should be treated like that and made to feel the way she was felt.

As I read this true-crime novel by Liza Rodman I continually shook my head, amazed that she even survived her youth. Not only was one of her favorite neighbors an actual serial killer, but her mother also left her alone with just about anyone so she could in order to go out and party.
Liza and her sister had a fun and colorful childhood spending their summers in Cape Cod, usually living in the hotel her mom was employed by. The colorful stories of her mother and her boyfriends, the eccentric neighbors, and mainly the nice and handsome handyman Tony gloss over the sad but glaring fact that Liza was left alone way too often with a psychopath. He would take her and her sister to the woods to see his secret garden, which in time turned out to be the burial plots for numerous murdered and dismembered young women.
The personalities of the key characters- Tony, his wife, Liza’s mom, and Liza herself will keep you reading. Common sense tells us Liza lives because she wrote this book but as close as she came to danger made me want to keep reading just to confirm that she did indeed survive. This is a well-researched true crime with a heavy dose of bad parenting sprinkled in. I salute Liza for surviving and for having the light and carefree attitude she displays in her narration.
Thanks to NetGalley and Atria for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. The release date is March 2, 2021.

Thank you to NetGalley, Liza Rodman, Jennifer Jordan, and Atria Books for the opportunity to read this book!

The Babysitter by Jennifer Jordan and Liza Rodman is one of my most anticipated books for March. It released on March 2nd and it is part memoir and part true crime. Liza Rodman recounts her time as a child in Cape Cod in the 1960s. Her family life was difficult. Her mother was abusive, emotionally and physically. Her mother worked at a motel and often went out on the town. She was notorious for finding last-minute babysitters. They meet the handyman named Tony. Wanting to get Liza off her hands, Liza’s mother let Liza go with Tony to run errands and dump runs. To Liza, he was friendly and treated her kindly, but his full name is Tony Costa. Unbeknownst to those who knew Tony, he was a sadistic serial killer. It is believed he killed up to eight women but only convicted of two women, Mary Ann Wysocki and Patricia Walsh.

It really is difficult to write this review because I was so looking forward to reading this book. I love true crime and I love memoirs and reading two in one sounded thrilling! This book did not meet my expectations. First of all, Tony was not Liza’s babysitter. Her mother pawned her off on him, she didn’t pay him nor did he watch her at her home. She only ran errands with him. So I felt the title was misleading. Second, the book begins with Liza as an adult having nightmares about Tony. As a child, she didn’t know he was a killer. She didn’t put the two together until after her nightmares began. My issue is she recalls days, weeks, years, and full conversations but didn’t figure out he was a killer until 50 years later? I believe that we can remember details from our childhood. But I honestly found it really hard to believe that she remembered ALL those details and full conversations. She writes that her childhood self was obsessed with Tony and even had a little crush on him. While crime novels and learning about serial killers interest me, I don’t romanticize them.

Not only that, but I found a few problematic details. The language regarding women and the LGBTQ community was cringe-y, to say the least. Then there was one quote that was jaw-dropping. When I read it, I had to reread it over again, to make sure I read it correctly. The scene is the mom made Liza dinner and to Liza it was inedible. The mother said that they don’t waste food because people in Biafra are starving. Liza then says, “wherever Biafra was, I wish I could send them my hotdog.” Am I wrong? That feels so unbelievably insensitive and cruel to a real issue. Not only that Liza makes references to the victims, calling them “teenyboppers” or “groupies.”—For a book with a dedication that says, “for the women,” those references felt like the author is victim-blaming.

In regards to the true-crime portion of the book, it was fine. This could have been an enjoyable book without Liza’s memoir sections. The layout is awkward. One chapter is a true crime, then the next is Liza’s memoir that is pages and pages that have nothing to do with the true-crime aspects. I can’t tell you how many times Liza references her “big boobs“—they are always italicized in the book. Overall, I was very disappointed. 1 out of 5 stars.

The Babysitter by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan is true crime/memoir that is both riveting as well as being simultaneously horrifying. Wow. I absolutely tore through this absolutely addictive true story. The idea that Liza and her younger sister were almost daily in the summertime running errands with a serial killer made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Definitely add this one to your TBR, and maybe plan on keeping the lights on.