Tell Me Everything

June 1, 2022

Listeners will be transfixed as Gabra Zackman reads Krouse's detailed memoir of her five years working as an inexperienced private investigator for a civil attorney. She is in her element when she's assigned a sexual assault case with the accused being a local university's football team. Krouse searches for witnesses and victims, making the case expand in scope. Meanwhile, she deals with toxic issues within her family, with her feelings as a survivor of sexual abuse, and with notoriety when the case receives national attention. The audiobook opens with piano music under the intro, setting listeners up for the narrative to unwind. Zackman projects a very stiff and professional demeanor, almost clinical in nature, as she becomes Krouse. She infuses a wide range of emotions into the story, remaining objective when listening to victims and maintaining total control of her anger when speaking with suspects. She is relaxed when talking about her boyfriend, yet tightly wound when talking to her mother and her siblings. VERDICT Krouse's memoir will be appreciated by true crime fans and those who follow legal mysteries.--Stephanie Bange

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 29, 2021
Novelist Krouse (Contenders) chronicles a benchmark sexual assault investigation in this enthralling blend of true crime and memoir. “I became a private investigator because of my face,” she writes, describing a chance meeting in 2002 that led her to take a job investigating lawsuits. All too familiar with complete strangers confiding secrets to her, Krouse imagined interviewing others would come naturally, until she was assigned to investigate the rape of a college student. A victim of childhood sexual abuse, Krouse was wary of taking on the case, but, as she writes, defending her client, Simone—who was attacked at a party by players from her school’s football team—gave her the chance “to change things forever.” Over the next five years Krouse helped expose a culture of sexual violence, harassment, and corruption in the football program at Simone’s university. When the scandal expanded into the “hidden world of athletic money,” the investigation escalated into a civil rights case accusing the school of a “system of sexual abuse” that “amount to discrimination,” and what began as a fight for one woman’s justice becomes a battle Krouse fights against her own inner demons that eloquently contends with systemic issues still plaguing American institutions today. The emotional catharsis delivered by the book’s end turns this sensational tale into a stunning story of redemption and hope. Readers will be gripped.