Free Zodiac: The Shocking True Story Of The Hunt For The Nation's Most Elusive Serial Killer Ebooks To Download
Robert Graysmith was on staff at the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969 when Zodiac first struck, triggering in the resolute reporter an unrelenting obsession with seeing the hooded killer brought to justice. In this gripping account of Zodiac’s eleven-month reign of terror, Graysmith reveals hundreds of facts previously unreleased, including the complete text of the killer’s letters.
Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Berkley; Rei Mti edition (January 2, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0425212181
ISBN-13: 978-0425212189
Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.1 x 6.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (157 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #24,759 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #69 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > True Crime > Serial Killers #435 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns
Robert Graysmith is no Vincent Bugliosi, but he does know more about the Zodiac killings than anybody else on the planet. The detail about each of the five known killings is incredible, and Graysmith unearths another killing that occurred in Riverside prior to the Zodiac killings that may have been committed by the same person. And he does come up with a likely suspect.Prior to reading ZODIAC, I rented the David Fincher movie. I was expecting the movie to follow the book pretty closely, but there are some composite characters in the movie. Graysmith tells us about three main suspects; whereas, there were only two in the movie. Graysmith also speculates (pretty much believes) that Zodiac went right on killing after the murder of cab driver Paul Lee Stine. He lists 41 possible Zodiac murders, the last one occurring in 1981. Graysmith also had access to the Zodiac letters in which the murderer claimed credit for many more murders than those generally attributed to him.Graysmith has some annoying habits. For one thing, he describes every stitch of clothing one of the early murder victims is wearing. He's also awfully skittish about using real names. So many people are given pseudonyms this might as well be fiction. Later on he goes into elaborate detail about the phases of the moon, and how the Zodiac could have been planning his murderers to correspond with them. Then there's the sycophantic description of Filcher's movie as an addendum to the book. Here's Graysmith's description of Filcher's attention to detail: "His eye is calculating, more precise than any mechanical optics."Something else that I find puzzling was the police's inability to keep track of two of the victims who lived through Zodiac attacks, Mike Mageau and Kathleen Johns.
After watching the movie twice & reading the first couple of chapters of the book, I offer the following observations. First, there is a lot of detail. One gets the sense that Graysmith put in every scrap of information he had (whether or not it was truly relevant). As an example, I offer below the list of characters introduced in Chapter Two alone. Second, his writing style is neither here nor there. It doesn't read like a fictional account of the same subject yet it is more than a summary of known facts in the case. If it were not a real case, I would not continue reading as the storyline is overcrowded with seemingly unimportant data. However, it's this same jumble of information that gives the reader a sense of what it must have been like for the detectives working the case.1. Darlene Ferrin: shooting victim2. Bobbie Ramos: Darlene's co-worker at Terry's Restaurant3. Dean Ferrin: Darlene's current (second) husband4. Dena Ferrin: Darlene & Dean's baby daughter5. Bill & Carmela Leigh: Ferrins' landlords; Dean's bosses at Caesar's Palace Italian Restaurant6. Karen: Darlene's 17 year old babysitter7. Pam Suennen: Darlene's younger sister8. Jim "Phillips" (assumed last name): Darlene's ex-husband9. Bobbie Oxnam: previous co-worker of Darlene at San Francisco phone company10. Leo Suennen: Darlene's younger brother11. Mike Mageau: shooting victim; close friend of Darlene's12. David Mageau: Mike's twin brother; also a close friend of Darlene's13. Jay Eisen, Ron Allen, Rick Crabtree & Sydne: friends who attended Darlene's painting party14. Richard Hoffman, Steve Baldino & Howard "Buzz" Gordon: police officers who attended Darlene's painting party15.
Zodiac: The Shocking True Story of the Hunt for the Nation's Most Elusive Serial Killer TWISTED SERIAL KILLERS. True Stories of Sick Serial Killers: Serial Killers & Psychopaths. Serial Killer Collection. The Great Zodiac Killer Hoax of 1969 (The Great Zodiac Killer Hoax series Book 2) Harold Shipman: The True Story of Britain's Most Notorious Serial Killer (True Crime, Serial Killers, Murderers) Serial Killers: Most Horrific Serial Killers Biographies, True Crime Cases, Murderers, 2nd Book! (True Crime, Serial Killers Uncut, Crime, Horror Stories, Horrible Crimes, Homicides) Serial Killers: The 10 Most Notorious Serial Killers In Texas And Their Horrible True Crime Cases (True Crime, Serial Killers) SERIAL KILLERS THAT WILL GIVE YOU NIGHTMARES.: Serial Killers & Psychopaths. Serial Killer Collection. Serial Killers: True Crimes.: Chilling & Deadly Serial Killers (Serial Killers True Crime Collections. Book 1) The Stranger Beside Me: The Shocking True Story of Serial Killer Ted Bundy Serial Killers: The Worlds Most Notorious And Ferocious Serial Killers: An In Depth Analysis Of Serial Killers Minds Serial Killers True Crime: Chilling True Crime Cases of the Worlds Most Twisted Serial Killers and Criminals, Book 1 Colombian Killers: The True Stories of the Three Most Prolific Serial Killers on Earth (True Crime, Serial Killers, Murderers) Deadly Lessons: A Trial That Stunned a Nation. A Killer Whose Motive is the Most Shocking of All. Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer Robert Black: The True Story of a Child Rapist and Serial Killer from the United Kingdom (Homicide True Crime Cases Book 1) Christopher Wilder: The True Story of The Beauty Queen Killer: Historical Serial Killers and Murderers (True Crime by Evil Killers Book 16) The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer The Most Dangerous Animal of All: Searching for My Father . . . and Finding the Zodiac Killer Fred & Rose West: Britain's Most Infamous Killer Couples (True Crime, Serial Killers, Murderers) The Zodiac Killer: Terror and Mystery (True Crime)
