Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases [J0075]

2022 - PB Nice clean condition. From Paul Holes, the detective who found the Golden State Killer, Unmasked is a memoir that "grabs its reader in a stranglehold and proves more fascinating than fiction and darker than any noir narrative." (LA Magazine) I order another bourbon, neat. This is the drink that will flip the switch. I don't even know how I got here, to this place, to this point. Something is happening to me lately. I'm drinking too much. My sheets are soaking wet when I wake up from nightmares of decaying corpses. I order another drink and swig it, trying to forget about the latest case I can't shake. Crime solving for me is more complex than the challenge of the hunt, or the process of piecing together a scientific puzzle. The thought of good people suffering drives me, for better or worse, to the point of obsession. People always ask how I am able to detach from the horrors of my work. Part of it is an innate capacity to compartmentalize; the rest is experience and exposure, and I've had plenty of both. But I have always taken pride in the fact that I can keep my feelings locked up to get the job done. It's only been recently that it feels like all that suppressed darkness is beginning to seep out. When I look back at my long career, there is a lot I am proud of. I have caught some of the most notorious killers of the twenty-first century and brought justice and closure for their victims and families. I want to tell you about a lifetime solving these cold cases, from Laci Peterson to Jaycee Dugard to the Pittsburg homicides to, yes, my twenty-year-long hunt for the Golden State Killer. But a deeper question eats at me as I ask myself, at what cost? I have sacrificed relationships, joy--even fatherhood--because the pursuit of evil always came first. Did I make the right choice? It's something I grapple with every day. Yet as I stand in the spot where a young girl took her last breath, as I look into the eyes of her family, I know that, for me, there has never been a choice. "I don't know if I can solve your case," I whisper. "But I promise I will do my best." It is a promise I know I can keep.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Very much an autobiographical take from the inside of criminology. The author bares all and shares all, sharing the psychological pitfalls and tolls of working criminology. You get some science and the state of the art over the years. Very interesting and worth checking out."; "I found the process he went through to solve the cases riveting and his tenacity amazing. I appreciated his candor on his mistake of using inductive reasoning and then working to correct his process to deductive reasoning."; "A fascinating, real life look at what goes on in investigating crimes from the perspective of Paul Holes, cold case investigator. It was a difficult read in terms of the nature of the horrible crimes committed on human beings and the impact on both the families of the victims and the investigators trying to solve these crimes. Nonetheless, it was deeply insightful in learning how crimes are investigated utilizing forensics and behavioral science."