Erika has a face that makes you want to talk. She’s not sure exactly why but, when put in one-on-one situations with people, their secrets start flowing. When she bumps into Grayson, a high-profile lawyer, in a bookstore he falls spell to her special talent. Erika is hired to work for him on the spot, specifically to get into the minds of people surrounding cases and fish for new information. Tell Me Everything outlines her work on a landmark sexual assault case that set the national standard on advocacy, victims’ services, and consequences for perpetrators on college campuses, specifically in relation to college athletes. While diving into these assaults, Erika has to face the damage done by her own abuser years before.

I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did. Initially, I felt that by including her own experiences and true crime elements, the narrative would become jumbled and I’d prefer one aspect (memoir or true crime) over the other. I was totally wrong. Erika’s experiences went hand-in-hand with what the victims in the case went through, and her especially empathetic stance allowed for a more nuanced perspective than a typical private investigator. The instances of sexual assault mentioned were gut wrenching and graphic. The lengths that all parties went through to cover up and brush off the assault/rape/molestation that occurred made my stomach churn but, it was interesting to see the gaslighting happening on a case-wide scale as well as in Erika’s personal life as she fought her own battle. This book is a great introduction to true crime or memoir as it’s split fairly equally between the two. If Krouse ever decided to write a full length book on either subject separately, I’d purchase immediately. This was an important yet enjoyable read.