Warren recommended this book to me and in his recommendation, said the book was “very disquieting”, which for me means that I’ll have to read it sooner or later. I first heard of the Elisa Lam case through the elevator game (The Ghost in My Machine did an excellent write up of the history of this creepy game) so I was looking forward to finding out more.

First things first: you shouldn’t be thinking of this book as a straightforward true crime book. Anderson’s personal life and his mental health journey is a huge part of the book, turning this from a straightforward account of the case into something a lot more personal. In fact, I think this complicated my reading of the book – from the very start, it’s clear that all Elisa’s family wants is privacy. What then, should we make of this very public and personal exploration of Elisa’s death? While it’s clear that Anderson tries his best to respect the memory of Elisa, he also does give airtime to some of the more outlandish theories which I think might be hurtful to her family.

But because it’s clear that Anderson has the best of intentions (to find out the truth), I continued reading. Gone at Midnight has the habit of wandering off into tangents, which means that apart from an account of Elisa’s last days and deaths, we also read about websleuths (and conspiracy theories), mental health treatments (Elisa’s and the author’s), the history of the Cecil Hotel, and an investigation into allegations of corruption in the LAPD. It all sounds a bit random, but the ending of the book draws the individual strands together to suggest that Elisa’s death was not an accident but whatever happened, it involved a cover-up by the LAPD.

One point the book made, and which I’m inclined to agree with, is that Elisa’s case has helped galvanise discussions of mental health. Not all of it is productive (some people, for instance, would rather believe conspiracy theories than think that her mental health might have affected her actions in her last days), but it does seem like people are drawn to Elisa’s own posts and find a sort of community from her story.

Overall, this was a rather dark and personal book that not only talks about the Elisa Lam case, but explored the one-sided relationship that people managed to develop with the case. It’s not an easy read and I imagine the personal aspect of the book will turn off a lot of people, but ultimately, I found it to be a book worth reading.

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