Catch and Kill ticks another box off my Indigo 2021 Reading Challenge list for the category “A book about a true crime”. I do not usually read true crime, and even after reading Catch and Kill, I am not interested in continuing to read true crime. I did like reading Catch and Kill, though. Farrow has written his investigation and exposé of Harvey Weinstein like an espionage novel, except that it is a true story. I do not know if this is how true crime books are usually written, but I found it easy to read and enjoy in its novelistic format.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few years, you will know Harvey Weinstein as the Hollywood producer who got away with sexually assaulting women for decades before finally being exposed by Ronan Farrow in his 2017 article for The New Yorker. Farrow was not the first journalist who tried to investigate Harvey Weinstein over the years. His predation of women was an open secret in Hollywood. But Farrow was one of the few to keep going until his investigation was published, despite Weinstein trying to shut him down, trying to dig up dirt on him and having him surveilled. Farrow is definitely cultivating sources for his story as he tracks down the women who were assaulted by Weinstein and tries to get them to talk to him, but you can also tell that he cares about these women and wants them to get justice.

Interestingly, and which I did not know before reading this book, is that Farrow worked as a reporter at NBC and that NBC originally gave him the greenlight to work on the story about Weinstein. Then NBC pulled the plug on the story and told Farrow to take it elsewhere. Farrow alleges that executives at NBC were pressured by Weinstein. NBC says they were not. Maybe they were too busy covering up for their own Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer (whose allegations of sex assault against women are also addressed in Catch and Kill). Whatever the truth is, NBC messed up royally by passing on the story.

As interesting and compelling as I found Catch and Kill to be, it just serves as a reminder that men still think they can do what they want to women and get away with it. If so many A-list male actors knew what Harvey Weinstein was doing to women over the years, then why didn’t any of them speak out? Men do not like listening to women, so Weinstein’s victims really could have used the help, and they could have stopped Weinstein from assaulting more women. The #MeToo movement has shed more light on the situation, but it has not done anything to stop men from sexually assaulting women. Until men learn to respect women, we are never going to be treated equally. And I do not have much hope for men, and even some women, learning how to respect women when a man who has been caught on tape bragging about “grabbing women by the pussy” can get elected president. Yes, Donald Trump also plays a role in Catch and Kill as well.

Anyways, if you like thrilling stories about nailing bad guys, I highly recommend Catch and Kill.