THE BABYSITTER :: Liza Rodman

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

It was 2005 when Liza Rodman finally recognized the previously unidentifiable man from her long-recurring nightmares: Tony Costa, a local who often watched Liza and her sister during their summers in Provincetown, Mass. Liza's mother, a young divorcée, spent "most of her free time closing down the various bars and dance clubs with her own revolving door of suitors." She was cruel to Liza, who found solace hanging out with Tony, handyman at their motel and "one of the few kind and gentle adults in [her] life during those turbulent years." Rodman was 10 in 1969, when Tony disappeared. She never knew why, but was about to find out.

When asked what she remembered about Tony, Rodman's mother calmly replied, "I remember he turned out to be a serial killer." A shocked Rodman attempted to confirm they were speaking about the same man and her mother clarified: "Oh, for Christ's sake... don't be so dramatic. He wasn't your babysitter.... He was the handyman." Particularly telling of Rodman's sorrowful childhood: "Yeah, so what.... He didn't kill you, did he?"

A half century after Costa brutally killed several young women (when 1960s free love and ubiquitous runaways made "disappearing" someone seemingly easy), Rodman teams up with author friend Jennifer Jordan for The Babysitter. A haunting account--part memoir, part investigative journalism--of Rodman's childhood and its chilling connection with the Cape Cod Killer, The Babysitter is the astounding story of a vulnerable young girl and the consolation she found with a man who preyed on women.