“An Unthinkable Crime is a book of stupendous scholarship that shows how a band of defiant academics, psychologists, activists, law enforcement officials, and uncommonly brave victims slowly revised history, rendering visible a sickening problem—child sexual abuse—that was as endemic as it was ignored. Janelle Nanos has produced a definitive work, a story that’s ultimately about validation, vindication, and reclamation. What an achievement. What a gift.”—Jennifer Senior, Pulitzer Prize–winning Atlantic writer and New York Times bestselling author

“A gripping and nuanced portrait of human beings wrestling with pain, love, harm, and the complexities of belief itself.”—Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad

“Written with sensitivity and a reporter’s instincts, this book will shake you up. How we talk about what happens to one in three American girls doesn’t just matter for social justice—it matters for how scholars, politicians, and police alike think about what it means to protect women from the very start.”—Cat Bohannon, author of Eve

“Riveting, maddening, and nearly impossible to put down, this searing history of the sexual abuse of children goes beyond the suffering to show how and why the prevalence of these heinous behaviors has been hidden for far too long. At times, readers may think they are devouring a true-crime thriller—that’s how expertly Janelle Nanos unspools the narrative. As the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators continue to go mostly unpunished, this is the book the world needs right now.”—Amy Wallace, co-author of Nobody’s Girl

“An inspiring, enraging, and deeply clarifying journalistic work, An Unthinkable Crime not only dares to look closely at something our society has willfully ignored for generations; it also explains, in no uncertain terms, how this has happened—and offers three deeply moving stories of people who have lived through the worst consequences of that denial and refused to stay silent any longer.”—Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road

“An Unthinkable Crime is essential reading. Janelle Nanos has written a rigorous, deeply human account of why survivors haven’t been believed—and what it takes to change that. This book matters.”—Nadia Murad, Nobel Prize-winning author of The Last Girl