WHILE IDAHO SLEPT

+The author of the acclaimed true-crime memoir, The Kill Jar, tells the inside story of the "University of Idaho Murders," offering a memorable, thoughtful dive into our societal fascination with true crime, the media's seeming blood-frenzy, and the future of homicide investigations, while cultivating an intimate look into the minds and hearts of the victims and their suspected killer alike.

Just after 4:00 am on November 13, 2022, four University of Idaho students were viciously stabbed to death in an off-campus house. The killings would shake the small blue-collar college town of Moscow, Idaho, dominate mainstream news coverage, and become a social media obsession, drawing millions of clicks and views. While a reticent Moscow Police Department, the FBI, and the Idaho State Police searched for the killer, unending conjecture and countless theories blazed online, in chatrooms and platforms from Reddit and YouTube to Facebook and TikTok. For more than a month, the clash of armchair investigators and law enforcement professionals raged, until a suspect - a 28-year-old Ph.D. candidate studying criminology - was arrested at his family home 2,500 miles away in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania on the day before New Year's Eve. WHILE IDAHO SLEPT is a thought-provoking, literary chronicle of a small-town murder investigation blistering beneath the unceasing light of international interest, as traditional investigators, citizen sleuths, and the true-crime media acted - sometimes together, often in conflict - to uncover the truth. As J. Reuben Appelman brings this terrible crime into focus, he humanizes the four victims, examining the richness of their lives, dissects the mind and motivations of their presumed killer, and explores the world of northern Idaho, a rugged, deeply conservative stronghold steeped in Christian values and American patriotism. Going deep inside the case, Appelman addresses a crucial question: With so many millions of citizens armed by access and hungry to take part in a true crime hunt of their own, has the nature of homicide investigations permanently changed? Rising above the sensational, Blood from the Heartland illuminates the intrinsic connection between today's media, citizen sleuths, our societal mania for murder tales, and an impatient public's insatiable appetite for spectacle as never before. Running beneath, the pulse of the story is a heartbreaking narrative of the people we love, the dreams we all share, and the uncertain time left for sharing them. J. Reuben Appelman is an author, journalist, and private investigator who lives in Boise, Idaho. His true-crime crime memoir, The Kill Jar, was published by Gallery/Simon & Schuster (2018) and was among the first of the new true-crime memoir genre. The Kill Jar inspired the popular Hulu docuseries, "Children of the Snow" (2020), with Appelman serving as on-camera investigator and Executive Producer. The series has streamed tens of millions of times in America and abroad, and The Kill Jar was noted as among the best true-crime books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, Elle, Oxygen, Bustle, Crime Reads, and USA Today, with full features on Appelman and The Kill Jar in the Detroit Free Press, The Birmingham Eccentric, The Baltimore Voice, and others. "Children of the Snow" continues to be watched internationally and in America on the Discovery+ streaming service; The Kill Jar continues to sell in bookstores and online; and Appelman continues to be a guest speaker on many true-crime podcasts.