The Devil You Know follows Evie, a young reporter working on the breaking Paul Bernardo story. (For those of you who don’t remember Bernardo, he was a serial killer and rapist who terrorized the Scarborough area in the 1980s.) Evie is haunted by the memories of a childhood friend who was murdered — which parallels author de Mariaffi’s own life. She spends her time researching other murdered and missing girls, to the point where she spends more time with the dead than the living.

Evie is also being stalked by a man who lurks on her fire escape, just outside her kitchen window. Or is she? The stalker is a phantom, never truly seen. He may be a killer waiting for the right moment to strike or he may just be someone she’s dreamed up. To say any more would be to give away too much of the story.

The settings of The Devil You Know are modern-day gothic: a newspaper vault that bears more than a passing resemblance to a tomb, the eerily empty cottage at the edge of civilization — hell, the man on the fire escape invokes the spirit of the vampire at the window. It’s a creepy, eerie book, one that’s made all the more powerful because it makes you realize that this is simply the daily life for many women around the world. The Devil You Know is the devil we all know.

By: Elisabeth de Mariaffi
ASIN: B00IWTWLHG
Publlisher: Touchtone
Publication Date: 1/13/2015
Format: Audio
My Rating:  3 Stars

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW by Elisabeth de Mariaffi is an intense psychological suspense crime thriller with a blend of mystery and literary fiction.

Evie Jones, age twenty-two is a crime beat reporter for the Toronto Press in Canada and reports on crime, but is still haunted by an old unsolved murder of her friend years ago. Robert Cameron was suspected of the murder; however, was never apprehended and uses a number of names. She is obsessed (truly) with finding the murdered, as she is being watched, stalked, and taunted.

She is reminded of her best friend 's murder and of course uses her tools and soon finds some connections. Currently with Ellie's job, there is a great deal of publicity surrounding the arrest of Paul Bernardo. He's accused of being the Scarborough Rapist, a serial killer.  She is assigned to stake out Paul Bernardo’s house and gather as much information as possible, and ultimately leads her into danger and details of her mother’s past.

While the novel had some nice writing, feeling the fear, tension, violence and haunting emotions of women, with a story close to the author’s own heart, I could not get past the narrator of the audio book, Andi Arndt— very flat and non-engaging. Would recommend reading the book; however, would not recommend the audio version.