The Laughing Gorilla: The True Story of the Hunt for One of America's First Serial Killers

by Robert Graysmith

Book Overview

During the 1920s, in more than a dozen cities, over four years, and across two continents, women were being butchered. Eyewitneses claim the perpetrator was a hulking Bible-carrying brute who lumbered on all fours, and laughed maniacally with each new slaughter. The crimes haunted San Francisco Police Captain Charles Dullea, the last honest cop in one of the most notoriously corrupt departments in the country. But nothing could have prepared Dullea...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425237362
• ISBN13: 9780425237366
• Release Date: October 2010
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.3" x 6.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Sucks You Into 1930s San Francisco!

I loved this book and couldn't put it down. Graysmith has a way of imbuing each sentence with an interesting fact, as he did in "Zodiac." He is definitely one of the best true crime writers out there. This story was fascinating, and how Graysmith was able to put himself so effectively in the time and place of San Francisco in the 1930s is a mystery. I eagerly await his next book.

Bridget's Review

The Gorilla Man was the first serial killer to travel from place to place. After strangling a woman, he would proceed to violate her dead body. Onlookers who saw this beast attacking a woman, said that he laughed like a lunatic and he appeared to be an apelike figure. Most of his victims made the mistake of letting people know that they had a room available in their home. Charles Dullea was an honest man and the police captain in San Francisco. He's probably the only honest man on the police force at that time. He was trying to track down this maniac but at the same time was faced with corrupt officers everywhere he looked. He was determined to get this killer off the streets but what he found shocked him more than his fellow crooked cops. I don't know what to say except that I loved this book! Certain things were hard to read because it is based on a true story. If you like to read about bad cops and murderers, pick this book up! You won't want to miss it. Now I'm going to have to purchase Robert's other books, ZODIAC and ZODIAC UNMASKED.