CRIMEHQ BOOK CLUB
CRIMEHQ BOOK CLUB
We're partnering with the best publishers and authors in the world to help you discover extraordinary new true crime, mystery, and crime novels.
This isn't just your ordinary book club.
We have discussion questions for you to follow along with as you make your way through the book and live events.
Current Book Selection
May-June 2022
TRAILED: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders
By Kathryn Miles
In May 1996, two skilled backcountry leaders, Lollie Winans and Julie Williams, were found brutally murdered at their remote campsite in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, adjacent to the world-famous Appalachian Trail. Despite an extensive decades-long joint investigation by the FBI, the Virginia police, and National Park Service experts, this shocking case has never been solved. On the 20th anniversary of this infamous crime, award-winning journalist Kathryn Miles embarked on a passionate search for justice that resulted in a true crime must-read, TRAILED: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders. With gripping and compassionate reporting, TRAILED chronicles one woman’s all-consuming obsession to solve this notorious case while providing a revelatory look at the lives and legacies of this extraordinary young couple and offering an examination of the disturbing legacy of violence against women in American national parks.
Miles, a wilderness expert who taught at the same university where Lollie had studied, had been haunted by her murder for decades. When, in 2016, the FBI released a public call for new information about the Shenandoah Murders, she was assigned the story as a trail correspondent for Outside. That led to over four years of intense research and reporting, during which she gained unprecedented access to previously classified crime-scene evidence and eye-opening FBI documents and forensics, and performed countless interviews with the victims' loved ones and key members of the investigation. She discovered evidence of cover-ups, incompetence, and controversy that may have prevented the case from ever being solved. Miles quickly began to unravel the truth, and in TRAILED, she not only argues that the wrong man has been under suspicion for more than twenty years, but also presents a compelling theory of a new suspect after decades of dead ends.
“As a sexual assault survivor and college student, I found emotional healing and a strong sense of self backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, which continued to define me for years to come. The security and freedom I experienced on the trail and in the backcountry was shattered when I learned of the murder of women, including Lollie and Julie, when they were backpacking on the trail,” explains Miles, a skilled backcountry hiker and contributing editor at Down East Magazine, who has also published work in The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Politico, and Time. “I wrote this book because I’m angry that women, African Americans, and nonbinary and LGBT people have good reason to wonder if they are safe in the wilderness, which in many ways is still considered a white male domain. I’m angry that since I began writing this book, other backpackers have been murdered and assaulted hiking our nation’s trails, including the Appalachian trail, and those killers have left grieving families behind. I wonder who is demanding answers for all of them.”
LIVE Q&A with Author Kathryn Miles
✦ June 30th at 7p ET
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