Portrait of a Monster: Joran van der Sloot, a Murder in Peru, and the Natalee Holloway Mystery

On May 30, 2005, Alabama teen Natalee Holloway became worldwide news when she went missing while on a school trip in Aruba. Five years to the day, in Lima, Peru, another young woman, Stephany Flores Ramirez, also went missing. While Holloway was never found, Ramirez was discovered murdered in a hotel room. Though the two women were different in many ways, they had one thing in common: both were last seen with a young Dutchman named Joran van der Sloot. Currently awaiting trial in the death of Ramirez, Van der Sloot remains the main suspect in Holloway’s disappearance and is the focus of this well-researched book by Pulitzer and Thompson. Despite the gruesome subject matter, Cassandra Campbell’s simple, no-frills narration never slips into melodrama. Instead, she allows the brutal, unbelievable, and fascinating facts of these crimes to speak for themselves. It’s a performance that’s controlled and straightforward, and it easily pulls the listener into a powerful and disturbing narrative. A St. Martin’s Press hardcover. (July)