Unmasked: My Life Solving Americas Cold Cases

**The Instant New York Times Bestseller**ItS A Mark Of The Highest Honor When I Say ItS Even More Riveting Than An Episode Of Dateline.-The New York Timesfrom 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 DonT Even Know How I Got Here, To This Place, To This Point. Something Is Happening To Me Lately. IM 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 CanT 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 IVe 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. ItS 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? ItS 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 DonT 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.