A review by ajediprincess
Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases by Paul Holes

dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

This book was extremely fascinating, if not a little disturbing. I do not normally read true crime. I’m typically very sensitive to subject matter that would incite fear and anxiety. But, my library has an annual reading challenge that involves reading books from 50 different genres, so I chose this book to fit the “true crime memoir” category. It was good—well written, interesting, cinematic, and it had the sort of feeling of sitting down and talking to a friend who is a detective, a detective who is really passionate about his job and kind of overshares without realizing it. That’s what reading this book was like for me. 

I loved hearing about the crime solving tactics and strategies and all the dead ends and false leads Det. Holes experienced through his work. As someone who has worked for the police for the better part of a decade, I will always find the methods detectives use to solve cases to be infinitely fascinating. Cold cases are especially interesting to me, I think, because of the feeling of justice finally being meted out after years with no resolution. For those reasons, I thought I would love this book, when a friend in my forensics lab recommended it to me. To a certain extent, I did. But, it was difficult for me to get through this book without wincing and feeling bone-chillingly frightened at times. 

While Det. Holes does a great job of mentally bringing the reader into his office and unpacking his thought process when trying to solve a cold case, he also delves pretty deeply into the crime details and methods of the East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker/Golden State Killer and sets the scene for each horrific attack. Between 1974 and 1986, EAR/ONS/GSK committed 120 burglaries, 51 rapes, and 13 murders; and, while Holes doesn’t explore every single one, he does touch on several that stood out to him. I was deeply unsettled by the way Holes described individual attacks as though I was watching a flashback to the night that these crimes occurred. Perhaps that was the point, but I could have done without the somewhat cinematic detail. It is clear that Det. Holes has a great deal of empathy—that the injustice of these cold cases and the psychological wounds they left on each surviving victim haunt him regularly. I suppose the way Holes tells his story is meant to share that experience with the reader and if so, job well done.

One of the most interesting and compelling aspects of this book for me was seeing how the development of technology, particularly the progression of DNA research and genealogy tracing, has affected the police department over the years and really can mean the difference between apprehending the bad guy or unwittingly allowing the perpetrator to get away with murder. Det. Holes describes this experience as he worked relentlessly to identify the monstrous person behind these vile crimes in California and how the progression of technology across forty years was a key factor in solving these cold cases. Holes also describes his experience with some of the more bureaucratic aspects of working in law enforcement and how it can sometimes feel like one is banging one’s head against a wall of red tape, which is something I can relate to.

As with most memoirs, the reader gets to know the man behind the detective badge in this book and Paul Holes becomes something of a friend by the end. He shares in detail about his personal struggles with alcohol, night terrors, panic attacks, navigating relationships as a husband and father, and trying but failing to achieve the coveted “work-life balance.” I really felt for the guy as I was reading about the agonizing dichotomy between his wishes, hopes, and plans for his life and the crushing reality he faced daily. There are many ways one could look at Det. Holes’s story: the triumph of a modern day superhero, the cautionary tale of a man who gave up too much for the demands of his job, the self-absorbed boasting of a real-life Sherlock Holmes who let celebrity go to his head, the obsessive ravings of a cold case addict unable to resist the next “hit,” list goes on. One thing is for certain though, Paul Holes is a damn good detective.

 
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