The Garden of Evil

I’ll admit, I approached *The Garden of Evil* skeptical of yet another serial killer deep dive—but this one got under my skin in ways I didn’t expect. Rachael Doolen’s narration is the secret weapon: she delivers Ortiz’s prose with the dry, methodical cadence of a coroner’s report, which somehow makes the horrors *more* unsettling. When she lists Baumeister’s victims’ names, her voice doesn’t crack or dramatize; it’s the absence of emotion that haunts you. The audiobook’s short runtime means no fat, just a lean, almost claustrophobic focus on how Baumeister weaponized normalcy. The chapter on his wife’s gradual realization is devastating precisely because it’s understated—a single line about her finding a bone fragment in the garden, delivered by Doolen with the same tone you’d use to mention a broken lawnmower, will stick with me for years. That said, the brevity comes with trade-offs. Ortiz skims over Baumeister’s psychology in favor of procedural details, which left me craving more analysis of *why* he targeted truckers and sex workers specifically. The lack of survivor interviews also feels like a missed opportunity—hearing from those who escaped his clutches could’ve added visceral weight. And while Doolen’s narration is brilliant, the production occasionally falters with abrupt transitions between archival audio and her voice, jarring you out of the immersion. Still, for true-crime fans exhausted by lurid reenactments, this is a masterclass in how to tell a monstrous story without glorifying the monster. Just be warned: you’ll never look at a well-tended suburban lawn the same way again.