Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases

Just another fascinating true crime book, my guilty pleasure. I'd read Michelle McNamara's book and watch the doc on the Golden State Killer, and who didn't fall in love with Paul Holes who watched that doc?

Paul Holes is someone I learned about after reading Michelle McNamara's book "I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer". Since then, I've learned more and more about the cases he's helped solve and that list is extensive! This man is dedicated to his work and it's easy to idolize someone like him. I found that this book humanizes him.

Holes gives an inside view of his mind. As expected, dark thoughts reside there from years of getting into the minds of killers in order to catch them and the horrible things he saw every day, but we also see his brilliance in making connections that his years of experience facilitate and just plain old gut/intuition bring. We also learn about his obsessive nature with getting caught up in a crime, his anxiety, and how these put a strain on his family relationships.

Unlike other "celebrity" memoirs (and by that, I mean memoirs written by non-writers or journalists) this was well-organized and well-written. This probably was aided by editing from Robin Gaby Fisher. I found this really paid off! Celebrity memoirs can be very hard to read despite an interesting premise because the writing is so bad. This book is not that.

I truly appreciated Holes' candor and wow--what an incredible career to read about!

I like Paul Holes and listen to him on the Small Town Dicks podcast. It's a pretty straightforward telling of his career. I enjoyed it.

GREAT! Glad I requested this and was able to finish it. It’s been a tough time for me to focus on reading lately.

I quite enjoyed this memoir by Paul Holes and delving into the cases that he had worked during his career. He really does not hold back from describing his experiences and frustrations, both in his job and his private life. He was also very honest about the effect that his job had on his personal and family life. There were definitely times when I became super frustrated with him and the way that he would ignore his family in favor of obsessing over cold cases. As he started doing that a bit with his second wife, I was just like "WTF DUDE??"

I've read Michelle's book before, so it was nice to see her research process from Paul's point of view (rip). I also enjoyed hearing about the dead ends and the fatigue that had set in. Paul provides a really good look at the realities of police work. And while the book focuses on the Golden State Killer, he sprinkles in other cases.

I think what frustrated me was trying to understand the genetics mostly. It sounded so complex and confusing, and science has never been my strong suit. But since genetics was a huge part in catching this killer, so it felt like I really needed to understand what was going on there. Also, following Paul's career trajectory was somewhat confusing; I constantly needed to refer back and remind myself where he had been before. Overall, I still enjoyed the book regardless! I think some of it just dragged a bit, which meant that it took me a whole month to finish since I wasn't always feeling it.