Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases

**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.

Author: Paul Holes
Publisher: Celadon Books
Published: 04/26/2022
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.55h x 6.45w x 0.95d
ISBN: 9781250622792


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 02/01/2022 pg. 81
Publishers Weekly 02/21/2022
Kirkus Reviews 03/01/2022
Booklist 03/01/2022 pg. 6

About the Author
Holes, Paul: -

Paul Holes retired as a Cold Case Investigator after spending over 27 years working for the Sheriff and District Attorney's Offices during his tenure in Contra Costa County located in the Bay Area, California. Having experience in both forensic and investigative assignments, Holes specialized in cold case and serial predator crimes, developing and applying investigative, behavioral, and forensic expertise in notable cases such as The Zodiac Killer, Golden State Killer, and Jaycee Dugard. Holes is frequently sought out by investigators to consult on the most complex and high profile cases and has played a part in putting several serial predators on Death Row such as Darryl Kemp, Joseph Naso, and Joseph Cordova Jr.

As an FBI Task Force Officer while employed with the DA's Office, Holes teamed up with FBI and Sacramento DA personnel to apply innovative technology that identified Joseph DeAngelo as the Golden State Killer, the most prolific and cunning serial predator in U.S. history.

Since the arrest of DeAngelo, Holes has been very involved on the media side, continuing to assist law enforcement and victim's families with their unsolved cases through the television shows The DNA of Murder with Paul Holes and America's Most Wanted, and with the podcast Jensen & Holes: The Murder Squad.