His first book, Vanished in Vermillion, was a passion project stemming from a case he covered as a young reporter in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which highlights the failed investigations into two missing teenage girls in 1971. The book provided answers to the families involved and the communities invested in the case for decades.

Mastermind, Lou’s second book, unwinds what led up to the shooting of a Minneapolis Police crime scene investigator as she picked up her son at a supervised parenting center. The book sheds light on the control and abuse that exists in so many relationships, unbeknownst even to those closest to the victim.

Lou grew up in Wheaton, Minnesota, a small town that offered opportunities in sports, academics, and the arts — including speech, one-act plays, and writing the school newspaper.

He studied journalism at the University of Minnesota, winning the prestigious William Randolph Hearst championship in San Francisco as a senior.