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”People always ask how I am able to detach from the horrors of my work. Part of it is an innate capacity to compartmentalize, to put my thoughts in mental boxes and only access what I need, when I need it. The rest is experience and exposure, and I’ve had plenty of both. The macabre becomes familiar enough that I can dissociate from even the grisliest details of the job. I file the gore in my brain under science. I suppose anyone can become desensitized to anything if they see enough of it, even dead bodies, and I’ve been looking at them since college when I spent hours studying death scenes in pathology books.��

Paul Holes, a California forensic investigator, has spent almost his entire adult life investigating cold cases. He devoted twenty plus years chasing after the Golden State Killer, starting when the killer was still known as the Original Night Stalker and East Area Rapist. The grand finale of his career was the apprehension of this evil monster. Hunting these killers cost him everything. Marriages, his relationship with his kids, friendships, and the ability to embrace a normal life.

Was it worth it? I guess the bigger question is, would Paul Holes have ever been fulfilled doing anything else?

As I read this book, I kept thinking, why do we give serial killers such lurid, dramatic names, starting with Jack the Ripper? In more modern times, we have The Night Stalker, The Butcher Baker, The Zodiac Killer, Son of Sam, The Green River Killer, The Killer Clown, Hannibal the Cannibal, Golden State Killer, and my own backyard psychopath BTK Killer. If it bleeds, it leads, and giving a serial killer a flashy name adds color to the terror of those who read about his crimes. I mean, we have to call the killer something because we don’t know who he is. One notorious killer was called The Lady Killer until he was caught, and now we all know him as Ted Bundy.

My thought is, why don’t we call them something less glorifying or horrifying? Would Hannibal the Cannibal be as thrilled about his news coverage if he were called the Chicken Shit Killer? Would Dennis Radar feel as proud of the terror he inspired if he had been called the Limp Dick Killer? Law enforcement, and I’m sure Paul Holes felt the same way, often roll their eyes at the names the Press dub the killers they are hunting.

Holes experienced a lot of resistance from his bosses about working cold cases. He’d often have to surreptitiously work on them on his own time or steal time from overseeing the forensic lab, his real job, to search for new leads. Police departments want clearance rates on hot cases. They don’t want limited forensic time spent analyzing data from a case that went cold a decade ago. If I had any doubts he was doing the right thing, there was a convincing conversation he had with one of the victims of the Golden State Killer who had been fortunate enough to survive. She lived in abject fear that at some point the killer was going to come for her again, even more than a decade later.

Victimization never goes cold.

The thought of a killer calmly going about his life, sitting down to dinner, watching football on TV, and mowing the lawn is just about enough to tilt even a hardened investigator like Paul Holes over the edge. Serial killers don't deserve a normal life or any peace of mind.

Paul was good friends with Michelle McNamara, and they shared information back and forth about the Golden State Killer. This was truly the situation of one obsessive finding another obsessive, and what a relief it was for Holes to finally find a kindred spirit as determined as himself to find the killer. Unfortunately, McNamara passed away shortly before her explosive book, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, was released. It’s one of those tragic ironies of life that she didn’t live long enough to see the Golden State Killer apprehended.

If you enjoyed John Douglas’s book Mindhunter,* you will certainly relish this even more intimate look at the mental and physical toll experienced by investigators who choose to chase killers. You can’t catch them unless you enter into their dark and twisted existence, and there is no way to do that without carrying some of their evil away with you. Holes watered down his thoughts with bourbon, but even that grand elixir can only do so much.

*I’m still holding onto a slender thread of hope that the Netflix series Mindhunter, based on the Douglas book, will eventually bring us season three. The actors were released from their contracts because of the busy workload of David Fincher, so officially it is not canceled, just on indefinite hold. Meanwhile, you can read Paul Holes book and hope that a series will eventually materialize based on his life.

I want to thank Celadon Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

@CeladonBooks #UnmaskedBook #CeladonReads

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