Book Review: Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow (as an audiobook)

Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators
by Ronan Farrow (Compact Disc 331.4 Far)

Ronan Farrow won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for his story on Harvey Weinstein and the multiple allegations of sexual assault, abuse, and retaliation.

This is the story of that investigation. Halfway through this book, Farrow realized he was being stalked by unknown persons for unknown reasons. In the end, NBC fired Farrow in an attempt to keep misconduct allegations against former “Today” show host Matt Lauer from becoming public after Weinstein and his attorneys learned about the complaints. NBC was desperate to keep the Lauer story quiet and Weinstein’s silence on the matter required Farrow’s story on Weinstein to never see the light of day.

Ultimately, Farrow went to The New Yorker for publication of this story, and ended up winning a Pulitzer.

I wasn’t aware he’s the son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen until his family history became embroiled in Weinstein’s subsequent attacks on him (Farrow’s sister, Dylan, accused Allen of molesting her when she was 8 years old).

Read by the author, this was an engrossing story and I was sorry when it ended.

If you want to read the actual articles, you’ll find them in a collection of award-winning stories in The 2018 Best American Magazine Writing edited by Sid Holt and published by the Columbia University Press. Available from the libraries through our Hoopla digital service.

[ publisher’s official Catch and Kill web page ] | [ Wikipedia page for Ronan Farrow ] [ Ronan Farrow on Twitter ]

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!