I'm not sure if I'm going to rate this one, as I really don't know how I feel about it. 

The fictional parts I did enjoy, and the focus on women's stories, particularly through not naming the male serial killer in the book and telling the story through the eyes of a full female cast. 

On the other hand, it didn't sit well with me that this used real life events and real names of The Defendant's victims. These people were real people with real, living families and friends, and it seemed counterproductive to the moral of the story to make these events a fictionalised version of real tragedies. The author was verging on doing what she was criticising the press of doing in the novel - profiting off the (female) victims of a horrific man. 

I went into this thinking it was loosely based off the crimes of this notorious serial killer (who we have all heard of but I won't name in line with this book's purpose), but it is really a fictional retelling of true events which feels a little bit icky to me. I think this would have worked so much better had the story been completely fictionalised and only vaguely referenced things from notorious serial killers of the past.