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***HAPPY PUBLICATION DAY***


The blurb for this book is incredibly extensive. It will tell you that Paul Holes discovered quite early on in his career as a criminologist that he felt the most satisfaction out of solving cold cases. Even while holding down a job in a police department and having a family with two young children, he spent all of his off hours on these cases.

I wondered about how he sometimes validated sneaking in samples of DNA for cold cases while the department was struggling to keep up with a mountain of current cases, where they might be able to find a captive still ALIVE!! He justified a lot of his actions, but I felt for the people that had to work with him. He was very much centered in his own world!

Obviously this took a great toll on his personal life. I can’t judge his wife for wanting a divorce. Even when he was home he was never fully present. He was also an alcoholic, using bourbon in an effort to calm himself down. He had raging nightmares that would often wake his wife and he barely allowed himself time to sleep more than a few hours.

He did remarry and had two more children, however; he states in his book “My work wasn’t my job, I explained. It was my purpose. My worth. My reason for choosing to exist on this earth . . . How could I stop being that person? It was who I was. . . .The only place I felt lost was at home��.

Sadly I don’t think any wife or family could ever compete for a place in his life. When he finally caught the Golden State Killer he sold his house and moved his family to Colorado. This was supposed to be a new start.

He couldn’t stay away and still assists law enforcement and victims�� families along with having a television series and a podcast.

I am grateful to Mr. Holes for all of his devoted work in bringing some of the most horrible monsters to justice.

MY FEELINGS ON THE READING EXPERIENCE: While I found the author’s journey interesting, I had a lot of problems with the actual writing in the book. There is a lot of repetition of how the victims were bound, tortured, raped, etc. I didn’t need it to be repeated ad nauseum.

There were also constant intricate descriptions of every phone call, every break in the case, on and on and on to where I ended up skimming to finally get to the closing.

I did find the incredible leaps and bounds that have been made using even old DNA to track down relatives, etc, anyone who might be a match to whatever DNA they had on the GSK, to be very interesting. It is remarkable how science has changed in just the last 20 years!! I LOVED the scientific parts of this book.

I know that true crime fans will love this book, especially those who listen to his podcast. I may not be the right audience for this book, but I’m still glad that I read it.

This was a buddy read with Jan and Marialyce, be sure to read their reviews!

I received a copy of this memoir from the publisher through Edelweiss.