Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases

by Paul Holes

Book Overview

**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**

"It's a mark of the highest honor when I say it's even more riveting than an episode of 'Dateline'."
--The New York Times

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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250622794
• ISBN13: 9781250622792
• Release Date: April 2022
• Publisher: Celadon Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

A behind the scenes view of finding the Golden State Killer

The shows I like to watch on the ID channel are the ones where the cases get solved. The open ended ones are just way too frustrating! That being said, while this book was attention catching and a compelling read, I was disappointed in some of the cold cases that Paul Holes introduced that were intriguing but he never solved them. That would be why I can't give this book the full five stars. It would have been better to only put in the solved cases, though that is just my opinion. Paul Holes search for the Golden State Killer, which was the big case in this book, and a big part of his life for many years (starting from when the killer was known as the East Area Rapist) and his career was fun to read about and I came to appreciate the effort he put into it trying to figure out his identity, sometimes at the expense of his personal life and family. I remember when it was all over the news and it was cool to get a behind the scene view of it all. So, it was an enjoyable read and I am glad I got the chance to read it.