I Saw The Devil's Face

“Life was just easier and more carefree for adults back then.” In the context that is this book, this quote will haunt me.

This entire book is heartbreaking and so personal as the author goes through her interactions with the absolute waste of life that was Joseph Michael Kalady and the horrific things he put children through. This is a very heavy read, obviously, dealing with child trafficking, parental neglect, sexual abuse and the results of how damaging homophobia can be.

I Saw The Devil's Face is mainly the story of Teresa Giglio's exploitation as a child by prolific criminal Joseph Kalady. Kalady was a man of many crimes but never made to answer for his serial offences against children. That lack of action,or even interest ,by the authorities towards sex crimes is the theme of Ms Giglio's book, in another episode as an adult she came face to face with a man very obviously intent on seeking out a female victim an area where there had been several sex attacks. When the police eventually turned up 30 minutes after she'd called they failed,despite what turned out to be a very accurate description,to apprehend a career criminal who lived within walking distance of her experience,that same man is suspected of murdering at least 2 women in following years.

On the same theme she tells of the 100,000's of thousands of rape kits that Police in America have failed to process,that failure meaning that a simple check on the DNA database that would potentially see hordes of sex offenders brought to justice cannot be done.

The book is written very much in a stream of consciousness style and sometimes is hard to follow as a result as stories are told in a rather scattergun style,a bit of tighter editing would have made it easier to follow.

That aside some very powerful relevant points are made,not least that sex crimes destroy lives but seem to be a low priority with most police forces in America with stolen cars seemingly more important than victims of predators.

I was glad to see also first hand the myth of the glamour of the American Mafia exposed. Too often in movies these are shown as "men of honour". The reality is ,as the book describes,they're sick,twisted and immoral people, psychopaths and thugs. They're not glamorous,they're brutal and nasty people.

Not an easy read for its content or the way its written but an important one that carries a very strong message to the forces of law and order about their priorities.