Predator

De: Jack Olsen

Narrado por: Kevin Pierce

Predator is a true crime account of Edward Lee King, a serial rapist whose crimes spanned more than a decade across Washington State, as well as the related wrongful rape conviction of Steve Titus. Jack Olsen uses the pseudonym “McDonald Smith,” for Edward Lee King, to avoid any legal issues as the convictions, at the time of Predator’s publication, were still potentially subject to legal review/appeal.

Two-time Edgar Award winner Jack Olsen, known as “the dean of true crime”, traces how Edward Lee King manipulated women, deceived authorities, and avoided accountability while law enforcement failed to connect a pattern of violence that left dozens of victims traumatized.

King appeared outwardly respectable. He held steady jobs, dated regularly, and often posed as religious and polite. But behind this image, he led a secret life of predatory behavior. Starting in the late 1960s, King attacked women in parking lots, homes, and isolated areas. He used intimidation, deception, and force. Although his attacks followed a pattern, local police departments working in isolation mistakenly treated each case as a standalone incident. Olsen documents how this lack of coordination allowed King to avoid suspicion.

Meanwhile, a respectable young businessman named Steve Titus found himself charged with one of Smith's most sadistic rapes in a nightmarish case of mistaken identity and injustice. The idealistic Titus was certain that the American system of justice would clear his name right up to the day that a jury of his peers returned a verdict of guilty. As Edward Lee King continued to terrorize the women of Seattle, Steve Titus lost everything: his reputation, his job, his loved ones, his freedom and eventually his life.

It was only when a Pulitzer prize-winning Seattle Times reporter, Paul Henderson, answered Titus's pleas for justice that the terrible truth emerged: a truth that was darker than anyone imagined. Predator is a gripping work of true crime reporting: Jack Olsen doing what he does best. It is a searing study of violations: of women, of justice, of power, and of the human spirit.

What sets Predator apart is Olsen’s disciplined, evidence-based storytelling. He avoids sensationalism. He centers victims and shows how institutions dismissed them. He illustrates how King operated openly for years, relying on people’s willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt. Olsen draws a picture of a man who was not clever or elusive but enabled by weak oversight and a culture unwilling to take sexual violence seriously. The book is also a critique of how law enforcement and the courts treated rape during that period. Olsen shows how male authority figures often discounted women’s testimony, ignored patterns of repeat behavior, and failed to act until the damage was irreversible. By the time King was finally sentenced to life in prison, the lives of many women had been permanently altered.

©2014 Jack Olsen (P)2015 Evan Olsen, Su Olsen

Weird true crime topic but compelling *1.25x speed

This isn't my favorite Jack Olsen book. It's about a serial rapist and a man convicted wrongfully of the rapist's crimes. It focuses more on the rapist. Olsen really delves into the rapist's childhood and it drags way too long. Every family drama to ever incur was dredged up and expounded upon.
Olsen details the ups and downs of the falsely convicted man & his fiance, how they fight the case, her sticking by her man,etc; the time and detail spent on the interpersonal drama is also excruciating. The couple were only together for two years but the detail makes it seem like 20 years had passed.
Every event thereafter in both of the sagas go on like that.

To make matters more worse. Pierce's narration is extra slow in this book. I played the book at 1.25x the speed & that helped.

Another aspect that bothered me, was Olsen wrote in the 1st person voice of what character's were thinking to themselves at very specific times and places. Maybe there's some literary-device word for what I'm trying to describe?
The reader reads (or Audible listener hears) the thoughts of Mack Smith in *his* first person...of what he's thinking in his head at a particular time.
Something like, "Mack Smith, thought, 'I can't believe I'm doing this. What have I done? I'm gonna be sick!'"
This was for practically for every person in the book. How can there be so much inner dialog for a non-fiction book? And hearing the inner dialog of a psychopathic serial rapist in first person was just disturbing.

I don't think Olsen was or would try to depict a violent criminal as sympathetic but this was iffy in much of the book. I think because there was so much detail for every year in the rapist's life practically, it was confusing as to what Olsen's objective was in telling this tale.

I think Olsen wanted to show the far-reaching impact one horrible criminal can have but it's way too messy with excessive details on things that are mundane. It could've been a long-form article.

Great read, sad story

If you could sum up Predator in three words, what would they be?

This is a disturbing tale of a sick sick man. This man happens to be my second cousin and this is how I had to read about it because no one in our family talks about it.

Gripping!

I just couldn't wait to hear "what's next". I would call it 'grippingly disturbing'.

Boring read - moved very slow

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Narrator needed to adjust his voice more when characters changed.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Finally ended.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

NO! who would want to see rape over 50 times?

Great True Cime

Would you consider the audio edition of Predator to be better than the print version?

I enjoy audio better than written and Kevin Pierce does a great job narrating.

What did you like best about this story?

That it is a true example of the mistakes that can happen in our justice system, I think everyone who sits on a jury should have to read this book. I felt sickened, saddened and downright angry reading this. Thank you Mr Olsen for writing this book !!

Have you listened to any of Kevin Pierce’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have listened to Murder of a Mafia Daughter. He did a great with both. His voice is perfect for true crime.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Everything that Steve had to endure. It is scary how flawed and unjust our system can be. How do you give back all that was taken from someone unfairly?

Any additional comments?

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

good book

A good interesting book and Kevin Pierce is always great. it's amazing how long some criminals get away with their crimes.

Start to finish excellent book

The intro had me hooked from the beginning. The social history was impeccably written. Details and the narrators voice were in sync. I would recommend this to any fellow true crime fanatic!!

Great book

Well researched, well written. Lots of family history on Mac. Absolutely love the narrator!! I recommend.

great book

excellent just like all of Jack's books, very interesting story and one I had never heard of even tho I was born and raised here

More than just a story of a serial rapist

I downloaded this book more on the strength of the narrator's skill, than for any other reason, and very nearly gave up on it about a third of the way through it (something I almost never do). From a disappointing beginning, the book became overwhelmingly compelling as a consequence of what was something of a side-plot... but became the focus of fascination for me.

The story of Macdonald Smith, a psychopathic serial rapist, began with a lengthy, detailed narrative of his upbringing in a family impoverished both in finances and morality. The author's attention to detail was both excruciating and disturbing in many ways, but stretched credulity and struck me as very highly contrived, with far too many details and characterizations that seemed likely to have been extracted from the author's interviews with the subjects. I almost felt, at times, that I was reading thinly disguised fiction.

However, the book completely turned around, for me, at the point where an innocent man was wrongly arrested, tried, and convicted for one of Smith's rapes. The story of this poor man's struggle, the way in which the efforts to clear his name so destroyed his personality and relationships, was so compelling, that I found myself sitting in my parked car in my own driveway for several hours because I just couldn't set it aside for the next day's commute. The narrative of his eventual exoneration was tinged with tragedy, as well; but I don't want to be a spoiler. Suffice it to say that the middle third of the book was some of the best true crime I've listened to in quite a while.

Kevin Pierce does an excellent job in the narration; as I mentioned, I selected this book partially on the basis of his performance in another audiobook. His voice lends itself remarkably well to crime stories, with it's plain-speaking, almost 'cop-like' character.