Zodiac by Robert Graysmith Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Zodiac
Book Review: Reader Beware: Obsession Lies Within
Summary: 5 Stars
A lot of other reviews note the stretches, hunches and speculation that appear in this book as its primary weaknesses. None of them, however, note that most police work is based on hunches and stretches, and most crimes are solved through nearly blind speculation. In fact, crafting the opening salvo of solving a crime is all speculation, as the only people who were actually at the scene as the crime took place were the victims and their killer, not the police. Thus, the speculation is necessary to approach the task of solving any crime. As a result, the loose ends in this book are a very necessary and a common component to solving any crime.
The Zodiac killings are very close to me as I am a lifelong resident of the San Francisco Bay Area. David Berkowitz was in New York City, Jack the Ripper was a phantom of London and the Manson Family had operated primarily in Southern California. All were far, far away. The Zodiac was right in my backyard. To this day I still get chills when after passing over the Benicia Bridge, I see the green traffic sign hanging over the highway that reads, "Lake Herman Road, Next Right". Lake Herman Road of course, being where the Zodiac first struck by murdering teens Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday, as they sat parked in a remote lover's lane.
The constant interest and apparent obsession with the Zodiac murders is concentrated around two facts of the case: firstly that the Zodiac was never caught. All this book and most others do is outline what the author believes to be the best, most likely suspect. The other reason why people are so drawn to this case is the odd and mysterious way the killer stalked his victims and taunted the police after the crimes. After a killing, the Zodiac would usually call in and report his own crime. More shocking than that, he usually did it within sight of the police stations he had been taunting. If that weren't enough, he wrote ciphers, or coded messages, and sent them into the local newspapers. Some of these ciphers were solved, yet many were not despite the best efforts of the law enforcement community throughout North America.
Graysmith takes us on a rollercoaster ride as the crimes are committed. The reader can visualize and feel the cold, dark night on Lake Herman Road. The same feeling is present when the man who stalked Darlene Ferrin for months prior shows up just a few miles down the same Lake Herman Road where the first double murder was committed, on a turn out for the golf course at Blue Rock Springs. It's here where he takes the life of Darlene and leaves Mike Mageau clinging to life. The reader is transported to the remote, grassy peninsula by Lake Berryessa where the Zodiac first donned his executioner's costume, and where he stalked his victims, leaving only one of them barely alive. Finally, we get inside Paul Stine's cab with the Zodiac as he commits his most infamous crime on the cold, damp streets of the Presidio Heights of San Francisco. Graysmith goes into great detail to make the crimes as real as possible to us, allowing the reader to view the crimes from nearly every angle. The Zodiac's infamous calls to the police and letters to the newspapers are sprinkled throughout, setting the stage for the nationwide manhunt.
After the rollercoaster ride that is the Zodiac's killing spree, we are immersed into the facts of the crimes, the strange coincidences and the lives of those chasing the Zodiac. We are even introduced to unsolved murders that are not credited to the Zodiac, but have the same traits as Zodiac crimes and are within what is considered to be the Zodiac's territory. Graysmith explains to us how he became involved and how a novice approach yielded the best Zodiac suspect and the one widely excepted as the most likely by the law enforcement officials closest to the case. In a pure literary sense, this book is as engaging and riveting as they come. I don't believe it to be a scary book; some people mentioned that they wouldn't read it late at night or while alone. In fact, those are the only times I did read it. The setting in which a book is enjoyed is an important element to how the book's presentation comes off to the reader. I remember reading it on a cold night, with the rain beating against my windows. It took me out and made me think of how quiet and cold Lake Herman Road must have been at that moment. A place where people say that a haunting, grey fog still sits over the road and the place of the murders...even after the rest of the fog as blown inland, or on a night where no fog is present anywhere else.
If you're into true crime or even some Northern California history, this book is a must read. Take it all with a grain of salt, don't allow the author's conclusions to automatically become yours. Instead, take the book in, try and put yourself into the scenes and try to solve the crimes yourself. The Zodiac murders have captivated the minds of novice detectives and common folk alike; so don't be surprised if you end up with the urge to read this book a second and third time. I know I did.
Book Review: Response to Monty
Summary: 5 Stars
First I would like to respond to the first review... I have read the book and I am very excited about the movie based on Mr. Graysmith's book, Zodiac Unmasked!! As odd as the case is, I do know that the projector theory you mentioned is not at all true... Graysmith CLEARLY states in Zodiac Unmasked that the oddest part about the case being unsolved/cold is that he believed the killer was in front of their eyes and Arthur Leigh Allen. In the book he unmistakingly states that Leigh (which if you read the book, you would not need to use pages to identify numbers the memory of information would stand alone) is what he prefered to be called, was AMBIDEXTROUS! He used his LEFT had in every day writing and his RIGHT hand to write the letters. That is if he was indeed 100% the Zodiac killer. Just to clarify things for you, this was Leigh's genius... he was indeed a mastermind at making certain he would not get caught. The reason why they went to get a handwritng sample was NOT to get a sample of his every day handwriting, it was to get a sample of his RIGHT HAND! They needed Sherwood to check his RIGHT HAND because that would have been the hand they would need to test the letters....
i hope i was able to clear some things up for you... i loved this book and i too, LOVED this case. Back then, there wasn't much geographic profiling as there is now and not to mention, DNA testing... there was only saliva testing. If you want to pass judgement on a case you should have probably bought a fictional novel however going into this you should have known with the title being ZODIAC UNMASKED... it is a cold case and has yet to be solved... hopefully, one day, the victims' families will be able to put closer on thier losses. With that being said, my condolences go out to the families that lost their loved ones to this killer.
sincerely,
chloe25
Book Review: Scary people out there!
Summary: 5 Stars
I really couldn't put down this book. It reads like a first rate fiction book. It is horrifying to think that all the events in this book actually took place, and more terrifying still that the serial killer is still at large after over 30 years of evading the police.
The killings are gruesome, with some victims repeatedly stabbed to death, while others shot at close range with a hand gun. None of the victims are sexually molested, and they are not robbed of their personal belongings. The killer derives pleasure from killing his victims. As he later tells police in letters sent to newspapers, he kills in order to collect his victims as slaves for the next life!
There was one instant where the killer might have been caught. After the Zodiac (as the killer calls himself) shoots a taxi driver, a police car is called to the scene after the gun shot is heard. However, witnesses mistakenly reported a black man at the scene. The Zodiac is a chubby white man. When the police arrive near the scene, they see the Zodiac walking, and stop by him to ask him if he had seen a black man in the area. He says yes and points to the direction he allegedly saw a black man with a gun running. If the police would have stopped and interviewed the Zodiac more carefully, they would have seen his bloody hands. There is no telling what would have happened then. The police could have been shot dead, or maybe it could have been the other way around (there were two policemen in the car.) The Zodiac also called the police after committing some of the crimes - from phone booths adjacent to police stations!
Another chilling instant was when the Zodiac stopped a pregnant woman and her child on a road claiming that her back tire was wobbling. He volunteered to fix the tire, and while the woman watched from her side view mirror, he appeared to do just that. However, as soon as she drove off, the back tire completely came off and she had to stop. She was then kidnapped by the Zodiac and driven around for almost an hour, as if the Zodiac was looking for an ideal place to kill his victim. However, the woman together with her child manage to jump out of the car, and escape death!
Not all of Zodiac's victims died. Although some victims were repeatedly stabbed, some survived! In all, it is believed that the Zodiac might have killed about 37 people. He is still at large!
It was quite amazing how an amateur code breaker was able to break the coded letter of the Zodiac within a day and night. After the coded letter was published in a newspaper, neither the FBI nor the police were able to decipher the letter. However, an amateur man did! The FBI should have hired him!
This book will keep you reading throughout the night. It includes photos of the letters sent by the Zodiac that will send a chill up your spine. I just couldn't put this book down.
Book Review: Scary--real life horror movie
Summary: 4 Stars
The author was intimately involved in the investigation of the Zodiac killer and this is his dissertation. Real life being more scary than fiction, this book was hard to put down and made it hard to sleep as well. The author does a good job of laying out the facts of the case, the details, and the main suspects. If you like suspense, thrillers, or murder mysteries, this real life drama surpasses all the fiction. Here's to hoping this case actually is solved one day.Book Review: The Yellow Book revisited
Summary: 3 Stars
There are two problems with this book. One is that it is very entertaining from start to finish. Secondly, it purports that everything inside its contents is true and correct. The way this book is written, the average reader will take everything in it as gospel. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The problem lies in that Graysmith draws conclusions where there are none, stretches possibilities into truth, and reports as fact without any evidence to support it. There are so many errors that it would take a short story to cover it all.
Allen makes for a very interesting suspect, but the truth is that his DNA didn't match, his prints didn't match and his writing didn't match. Furthermore, there is no evidence (despite Graysmith's claims) that Allen knew any of the victims. Law enforcement has never found anything linking him to the crime, other than a watch that thousands of other people possessed. He was a weird guy no doubt, but there is far more evidence against him being the Zodiac than for it.
Graysmith wants Allen to be the Zodiac so bad he was willing to omit the truth to create this book. The truth is out there somewhere, but it's not here. We may never know who Zodiac is...and yes, your guess is as good as mine. We can only find the truth if we are willing to throw out that which doesn't match, rather than trying to force it to match.
This case wouldn't still be an open case with the San Francisco PD, the Napa County Sheriff's Department and the Vallejo PD if they really believed Allen was the Zodiac. Graysmith was an opportunist who weasled his way into the case. However, in doing so he also became a pioneer in this case, the first to try to put everything together to solve it. He started this wave of amateur sleuths that exist today. In that respect, society owes him a bit of gratitude. Maybe what he started will be the thing that finally breaks this case open.