Unmasked

3.5 stars

If you follow true crime then, odds are, you know who Paul Holes is. I do so I went in fully expecting to absolutely love this. I shouldn't have done that. What I wasn't expecting was to find how he portrays himself kind of off-putting. It IS a memoir so, of course, he is writing about himself. But it came across as very woe is me-ish. Clearly he's good at his job but that came with major sacrifices. I can appreciate his dedication to solving these crimes and trying to bring the victims justice..but it was Holes himself who took me out of the book.

Do I dislike the book? No. I'll probably just stick to his podcasts though. Is it worth a read? Yes. I think that if you're new to true crime, you'll like this book more because you'll know less about the cases. He focuses a lot on the GSK case...which is a very big well known case...unless you don't really follow true crime. All in all it was an okay read for me.

I listened to this as an audiobook. I don't think audio was particularly effective medium for this book. I also grew very tired of listening to the author complain about how they could not spend any time with their wife and kids over and over.

Oh my goodness, where do I even start with this book??

As I was reading through, I kept saying, “I know this case,” “I remember this case,” and “wow, I have been following this case for years!”

Part of the blurb reads: I order another bourbon, neat. This is the drink that will flip the switch. I don't even know how I got here, to this place, to this point. Something is happening to me lately. I'm 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 can't shake.

As I read it, and as I dove into the book, I could feel the obsession that drove Paul Holes through his many years. I wanted to dive into the evidence locker and look for long-lost cases. I was completed drawn into this book, unable to set it down, wanting to continue reading, and couldn't wait to turn the page and see what happened. It got to the point that I even got the audio version, so that I could listen while I was cooking dinner, taking a shower, or going through my work day.

Paul Holes goes through the ins and outs of the cases, the nights that he spent reading through cold cases, looking for the one piece that might draw the case together, always looking for the next high on the investigation. He spent hours digging into cases that were deemed unsolvable, because while one investigative team might have hit a wall, fresh eyes could find a new avenue of investigation, looking for the evidence that would lock a killer away for life.
There were some heartbreaking moments as well. Listening to the story of the detective who was shot to death when he returned to a home looking for evidence literally broke me. I was already familiar with the case, but hearing it again from someone who had been close to him was an entirely different matter.

I absolutely LOVED this book! For those who love true crime, this is going to be the perfect weekend read! I loved the different aspects of the investigative side, the ups and downs, highs and lows, and the catching of the “bad guy.”
Get ready for a book that will suck you in and leave you with a book hangover when you are done. You will not want to walk away from this one!

This review is published on my blog: https://literaryquicksand.com/2022/04/what-we-read-in-march-2022/

This book came unexpectedly in the mail from Celadon Books for my little free library. I was between books when it arrived, and I foolishly opened it to read the first couple pages. I was immediately hooked and had to just go ahead and read the whole dang thing

I'm a big Paul Holes fan and this didn't disappoint. If you've read Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone in the Dark or Billy Jensen's Chase Darkness With Me, you won't want to miss this book.