Jane Doe January (ePub)

Emily Winslow was a young drama student at an elite conservatory in Pittsburgh when she was brutally raped one night in January 1992. Twenty years later, a man was arrested in New York City. His DNA, recorded in the FBI's criminal database because of an old drug conviction, had been matched to evidence from another 1992 rape that was similar to Winslow's, and the police were able to link the crimes. The victims—one from January of that year, the other from November—were kept anonymous in the media. This is the story of Jane Doe January.

Now a happily married mother of two living in Cambridge, England, Winslow had longed to face her attacker for years. Highly inquisitive and restless for answers, she turned her career as a crime novelist into a personal investigation—she delved into his past, reconnected with the detectives of her case, and worked with prosecutors in the months leading up to the trial. While preparing to testify back in Pennsylvania for the crime committed against her two decades prior, she was pulled between two very different worlds: a hard-boiled American drama of intense detectives and legal bureaucracy, and her rarefied new world in Cambridge, where the university's rituals and pervasive formality were both a comfort and a challenge.

Jane Doe January is the intimate memoir of a woman's traumatic past catching up with her. In her first work of nonfiction, Winslow vividly recounts her long quest to see her case resolved, giving way to a strikingly honest narrative about the surprise possibility of justice after twenty years.

Advance Praise for Jane Doe January

“A powerful memoir of survival from a great writer.”—Lisa Gardner, author of Crash and Burn

“Brilliant, gorgeously written, and utterly chilling.”—Carla Buckley, author of The Good Goodbye

“Jane Doe January unwinds like a page-turning mystery novel while, with gut-wrenching perspective, it embodies the most elegant of personal journalism. I've never read anything like it.”—Julia Heaberlin, author of Black-Eyed Susans

“Winslow lays out the legal process almost as a police procedural. Then each time she puts aside her detachment to express rage, contempt, impatience, love, and gratitude, it takes on a devastating emotional white heat.”—Eliza Graham, author of The One I Was

“Searingly honest, poetic, heartbreaking, yet ultimately uplifting.”—Menna Van Praag, author of The Witches of Cambridge

“An extraordinary memoir, written with the skill of a master novelist. Winslow's courage in telling it is breathtaking.”—Allison Leotta, author of A Good Killing

“An eloquent, exacting map of what it feels like to dangle on the whims of justice.”—Jamie Mason, author of Monday's Lie

“Sheer bravery alongside a lyrical writing style.”—Kate Rhodes, author of The Winter Foundlings

“Heartbreakingly true. One of the most compelling memoirs you will ever read.”—Brad Parks, author of The Fraud

“Winslow's muscular, evocative, and achingly honest voice is unforgettable.”—Amanda Kyle Williams, author of Don't Talk to Strangers