The Spider and the Fly: A Reporter, a Serial Killer, and the Meaning of Murder - Paperback

by Claudia Rowe (Author)

Winner of the Washington State Book Award for Memoir

"Extraordinarily suspenseful and truly gut-wrenching. . . . A must-read."--Gillian Flynn, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Gone Girl

In this superb work of literary true crime--a spellbinding combination of memoir and psychological suspense--a female journalist chronicles her unusual connection with a convicted serial killer and her search to understand the darkness inside us.

"Well, well, Claudia. Can I call you Claudia? I'll have to give it to you, when confronted at least you're honest, as honest as any reporter. . . . You want to go into the depths of my mind and into my past. I want a peek into yours. It is only fair, isn't it?"--Kendall Francois

In September 1998, young reporter Claudia Rowe was working as a stringer for the New York Times in Poughkeepsie, New York, when local police discovered the bodies of eight women stashed in the attic and basement of the small colonial home that Kendall Francois, a painfully polite twenty-seven-year-old community college student, shared with his parents and sister.

Growing up amid the safe, bourgeois affluence of New York City, Rowe had always been secretly fascinated by the darkness, and soon became obsessed with the story and with Francois. She was consumed with the desire to understand just how a man could abduct and strangle eight women--and how a family could live for two years, seemingly unaware, in a house with the victims' rotting corpses. She also hoped to uncover what humanity, if any, a murderer could maintain in the wake of such monstrous evil.

Reaching out after Francois was arrested, Rowe and the serial killer began a dizzying four-year conversation about cruelty, compassion, and control; an unusual and provocative relationship that would eventually lead her to the abyss, forcing her to clearly see herself and her own past--and why she was drawn to danger.

Back Jacket

Poughkeepsie, New York, 1998.

Eight women had gone missing over the past two years and few were looking for them. The police had a lead--Kendall Francois, a large, awkward African American man that detectives had largely written off because he didn't fit the familiar serial killer stereotypes. One evening, Francois shook the region to its core by confessing to a prosecutor that he had eight bodies stored in his home.

The town became consumed with a desire to understand how this man could have committed such brazen crimes. Claudia Rowe, a young reporter living in Poughkeepsie, wanted to understand too, with a desperation that stunned her. Over nearly five years and through a series of letters, phone calls, and visits that consumed her life, Rowe engaged with a killer in a dizzying conversation about cruelty, compassion, and control.

A search for the origins of the darkest parts of human nature, a beautifully written tale of a reporter's relationship with her subject, a coming-of-age story that forces a deep reckoning with ourselves, a sociological dissection of class, race and crime, The Spider and the Fly is a multifaceted reading experience that will chill you to the bone.