Zodiac Unmasked: The Identity Of America's Most Elusive Serial Killer Revealed (2007) - Plot & Excerpts
Thank whatever gods may be that this is finally over. The weeks I spent slugging through this I couldn't stop thinking that I could be reading something else! To begin with, let's give the devil his due...Robert Graysmith knows a LOT about the Zodiac killer. Probably more than anyone. He has poured years of his life into interviews with witnesses and investigators: in effect, conducting his own investigation. This was probably a good thing, because the police agencies seemed to be totally inept at the task. The Zodiac practically begged to be caught and probably would have been if there had been any sharing of data by investigating agencies. In any event, Mr Graysmith investigated and compiled so much data that he eventually wrote two books on the Zodiac Killer; this is the second of those books. Maybe the first one was exciting.An investigation is usually a dreary ordeal of endless rounds of interviews, covering the same old ground and asking the same old lame-ass questions. Graysmith drags the reader along with him on these seemingly endless rounds of interviews, dutifully relating every mind-numbing bit of information provided by each witness. Hell, half the book is in quotation marks. I kept asking how a book written about a serial killer could be so dull, but came to the conclusion that this one was written to capitalize on the success of the first book - basically filler, if you will. It was definitely unnecessarily long.Don't get me wrong, Mr Graysmith is a competent writer, and he has me convinced that he knows the identity of the Zodiac Killer. If you are a Zodiac nut you will probably get your jollies by slugging through this. I was mildly interested when Zodiac II and Zodiac III made cameo appearances, but otherwise I found the book a tad on the dull side.
This book abot the Zodiac killer is okay. Very well researched but not written well. At the start the author jumps all over the place with dates and it seems as if I'm just reading somebody's notes. It got better and easier to read about halfway through the book as far as order went, but the book went dull as it was the part of the case where nothing was really happening. Near the end of the book there is a lot of stuff not in the original Zodiac book by author Robert Graysmith, but stuff that was in the David Fincher movie.In the end I liked this book for one word, proximity. I live in SF and play softball sometimes near the site when the Zodiac espcaped after shooting Paul Stine, the taxi driver. That site is Julius Kahn playground in the Marina/Presidio. I also work in Vallejo, so the entire book is describing streets and buildings and lakes found in Vallejo, places I often go by on the way to or during work. So...kind of creepy there. If you don't live in Vallejo or SF, probably won't like this book. Read the orginal book before this one if that's the case. Zodiac unmasked is a lot more detailed but not written as well.
What do You think about Zodiac Unmasked: The Identity Of America's Most Elusive Serial Killer Revealed (2007)?
Oh dear oh dear oh dear Mr Graysmith.The first book was fascinating, enthralling, intelligent and innovative. It touched the soul as it describes the author and colleague Paul Avery and Det Toschi's borderline obsession with catching the Zodiac. By the end of the book we think he has succeeded and it appears pretty cut and dry.Then I saw the second book out and thought wow how exciting. New evidence and new suspects.What absolute drivel. It was written like a pack of playing cards had been thrown in the air and then rearranged haphazardly. The new suspects were skirted over or clearly about as convincing as Ewan McGregor as Kenobi. It was back to the same suspect by the end and clearly him.Why do a new book? Oh yeah to rip money off people. Shameless.
—Steve Parcell
A continuation to Robert Graysmith's first novel Zodiac, it dwells into a suspect from the first book that fits all the marks of the Zodiac. The suspect was Arthur Leigh Allen. He was seen at the scene of some of the crimes and was even in the are when most of them took place. Everything pointed to him, except the couldn't trace the handwriting of the letters to him as Zodiac. He died in 2000, leaving the case unsolved, but many in fact believed it was him. A very chilling read and in-depth on the number one suspect in our country's most infamous and frightening unsolved murder cases.
—Jennifer
It is hard for me to review this book because it is very long (like 450 pages) and almost entirely redundant of the first zodiac book. it has like 10 pages of new information spliced throughout & a bunch of painstaking minutiae in between. Had I not read the first Zodiac book, perhaps I would've liked this one. The only reason I did read it-- the first book did not conclusively "unmask" the killer -- so i had to read on and find out. right? wrong! just skip to the last page and save yourself the time.
—Therese
