GENRE: Nonfiction/Memoir
MY GRADE: B
SYNOPSIS: For a decade, The Golden State Killer stalked and murdered Californians in the dead of night, leaving entire communities afraid to turn out the lights. The sadistic predator disappeared in 1986, hiding in plain sight for the next thirty years in middle class suburbia. In 1994, when cold case investigator Paul Holes came across the old file, he swore he would unmask the Golden State Killer and finally give these families some closure. Twenty four years later, Holes fulfilled that promise, identifying a 73-year-old former cop named Joseph J. DeAngelo. Headlines blasted from the U.S. to Europe: one of America’s most prolific serial killers was in custody.
That case launched Holes's career into the stratosphere, turning him into an icon in the true crime world with television shows like The DNA of Murder with Paul Holes and America's Most Wanted, and with the podcast Jensen & Holes: The Murder Squad. Everyone knows Paul Holes, the gifted crime solver with a big heart and charming smile who finally caught the Golden State Killer. But until now, no one has known the man behind it all, the person beneath the flashy cases and brilliant investigations.
In this memoir, Holes takes us through his memories of a storied career and provides an insider account of some of the most notorious cases in contemporary American history, including the hunt for the Golden State Killer, Laci Peterson's murder and Jaycee Dugard's kidnapping. This is also a revelatory profile of a complex man and what makes him tick: the drive to find closure for victims and their loved ones, the inability to walk away from a challenge--even at the expense of his own happiness. Holes opens up the most intimate scenes of his life: his moments of self-doubt and the impact that detective work has had on his marriage. This is a story about the gritty truth of crime solving when there are no flashbulbs and “case closed” headlines. It is the story of a man and his commitment to cases and people who might have otherwise been forgotten.
MY THOUGHTS: I wanted to read this memoir because I know who Paul is through his work with the EARONS (I refuse to call Joseph James DeAngelo, 'JJD' the Golden State Killer) case, which I've known about since early 2001. I also was a big fan of his now defunct show on Oxygen, "The DNA of Murder with Paul Holes." Paul learned of the EARONS in 1994 when going through a file cabinet at work with the Contra Costa County, CA sheriff's office. He also discovered Q-tip evidence in 1997 from an EARONS attack and got the ball rolling with the genetic geneology stuff that got JJD identified then later arrested in 2018.
Paul's a nonbeliever, an introverted loner who's shy, has anxiety and panic attacks and drinks too much. I don't think he said if he'd eased up on the drinking or not. He comes from a strict Catholic home. His father was in the air force, his mother's anorexic and his brother has OCD. That's pretty much all he said about them. He's definitely not much of a father and for that he should be ashamed. He's a bit too boastful when talking about his 'gift' for solving crimes and it borders on arrogance. Though very open, I felt this lacked in the noncrime part of the memoir.
I'm appalled and insulted that he said that 'in a way' Michelle McNamara (who penned one of the worst memoirs ever written) was a victim of the EARONS too. No, Paul, she's simply a victim of drug abuse that you're blaming on a then unapprehended serial killer. I sincerely hope true victims of JJD's have contacted him to let him have it for that comment.
I didn't care to hear anything about old well-known cases like Scott Peterson and Jaycee Dugard that he'd worked on. I like learning of lesser known crime and he didn't disappoint with the chapter on the still unsolved murder of Emmon Bodfish, from 1999, a wealthy transgendered man who was bludgeoned beyond belief in his home, and his son who killed himself shortly after.
I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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