i don't think figliuzzi actually knew what kind of book he wanted to write. the promise is an exploration of highway serial killings but this mainly ends up as part-travel memoir and part-examination of human trafficking, but it lacks the depth to do either effectively.

i think it was an interesting and good decision to choose to spend a week with a trucker, immersed in the culture he was writing about, but it also feels so jarringly out of place because of a lack of connective tissue to make it flow. the "[x]day with mike" chapters are interspersed randomly (outside of a few vague places, like the last day, where figliuzzi acknowledges he took a shower at the same truck stop a victim in an earlier chapter was killed at) and feel more like an attempt to pad the page count because he realized he didn't have enough material to actually explore the highway killing phenomenon. obviously, the conversations about trafficking are important, and have a huge role IN the killings, but—i don't think figliuzzi is the guy to talk about it.

he expresses some sympathy for victims, but also treats "victim" like a dirty word, and his attempts to humanize sex workers and trafficking victims (unintentionally?) puts a lot of blame onto them for their circumstances, and he echoes the same sentiments about victims who are sex workers (of their own volition) or drug users somehow being 'lesser', without even realizing it.

It is the nature of those victims and their victimology that keeps overworked, underpaid cops from prioritizing those cases.

there's a through-line of excusing the behavior of cops, which... expected, i guess, but it's still frustrating. these women are not prioritized because police do not see them as human and therefore worthy of their attention. he makes an attempt to acknowledge this later on: The women may get into some well-intended agency or organization that claims "We respect women" yet signals "But not you—you're the scourge of the earth." Even in drug treatment they won't disclose their prostitution because of the stigma attached. They are disproportionately women of color and LGBT. yet, he then dismisses the voices of these women later on: There were also claims from adult sex workers that Sepowitz was conflating forced trafficking with all sex work and treating everyone like a victim. Dr. Sepowitz tells me the assertions were false. Sometimes when you are making a different in people's lives, you make enemies too. so what is it, figliuzzi? do you believe that these women are dismissed because of their professions, or are you going to just dismiss it?

he then goes on later to rally against the idea of legalizing sex work, saying it wouldn't help at all, which is a complex conversation that he doesn't actually explore at all or offer any kind of data to try and back up HIS personal assertion that it wouldn't help. his solution to everything is that truckers should be shown an "hour long video" and made to "take a pledge" against trafficking.......... as if that will do anything?

i really was hoping for so much more from this, considering his profession prior to writing; i thought maybe he could actually provide some insight, but there's just nothing here that actually follows the initial premise and it's clear he doesn't have much idea what he's talking about when it comes to sex work and trafficking. not a book to read if you're actually looking for info about the correlations between trucking and serial killing.

atmospheric and moody but just kind of lacking in characterization for me. i do think i prefer WMTD and flanagan's adaptation.

listened to christopher lee's reading as part of my ongoing attempt to adapt to audiobooks