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Cole tells the story of the murder of twelve definite and probable victims of a man who called himself the Zodiac in the San Francisco area. The case created considerable public unrest, reached the CBS evening news, and was detailed in the city's major newspapers during the late sixties and early seventies. In the author's words, it "remains one of the most enduring mysteries in American criminal history." He dispassionately reports on the twisted game of the psychopath who made continuing threats of further violence in a vile published stream of writing, such as his plans to blow up a children's school bus.
Linked to murders in southern California, the Zodiac claimed to have killed thirty-seven people in all, though law enforcement did not validate that number. The Zodiac is the subject of books, a website, documentaries, and movies, but what Cole adds is the hope of being a catalyst to solve the mystery of the murderer's hidden identity. Interweaving together a mountain of evidence such as histories of locales, details of specific accounts, fingerprints, firsthand witness testimony, and DNA, Cole offers a hopeful note to the idea of a possible full forensic profile. He also analyzes some twenty pages written by the criminal himself. The victims' faces stare out from page after page, reminding the reader that this bizarre story is quite real. Cole's descriptions of the lives and personalities of those who fell to this tragic fate serve to memorialize them, if not bring them back to life. Hence the service performed by the author's book is great indeed.