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Graysmith's updated version is pretty good. If you read the various online Zodiac forums everyone has their favorite "flavor of the month" suspect. Ross Sullivan is hot right now. Forced to choose...with a gun to my head...I think ALA is the best of the lot. Not because I just finished the book, but most all Zodiac roads run past him. I understand...we have no DNA match , no handwriting determinations, no good prints and still no other absolutes that would totally put the stopper in the bottle for ALA. For that matter we have no conclusive evidence that fingers anyone.

This case happened in a crazy era for this country in a crazy area in the US. So many leads. So many strange things like the Chronicle classified...Zodiac your partner is in deep real estate...and the fatal auto accident the next day. Zodiac team? Who knows. Most everyone involved in the case is long dead.

The Zodiac case has always interested me. I had intentions of starting this book years ago. I am glad to finally cross it off my list. The book is crammed full of detailed information. Circumstantial or not, there are too many coincidences. This book plainly paints Arthur Leigh Allen as the Zodiac in convincing fashion. It is a shame the police departments failed to cooperate adequately and failed to bring the killer to justice. Do yourself a favor, and slip back in time nearly a half century ago and read this great book.

I read this book because it was recommended to me by a close friend, and honestly it is one of the worst reads ever. Don't get me wrong the story is interesting, a serial killer who was 'never' discovered, but the read is labourious. It reads like a bad documentary where there entire show is recalled after every ad break, then two minutes of New stuff before the next ad break. What I'm trying to say is this story is the most repetitive thing ever, the name of the suspect is mentioned every other sentence, and his crimes are repeated almost every chapter. You can learn as much about the zodiac killer in 20 minutes of Google searching as you can in 8 hours of reading this book! For your benefit do the former!

Read the first Zodiac & saw the film; loved both. The second Zodiac (Unmasked) is full of detail, almost step by step, month by month. Read them both as this is a fascinating case. Could not believe however that if the involved law enforcement departments had shared information the Zodiac would have been apprehended right away.

I wasn't that knowledgeable about the Zodiac killings when I started reading this book. I had heard of them, but didn't know the details. I believe that the author assumed the reader knew about the people involved, because I wasn't sure who some of the people were. Once I figured it out, it was very informative. But, I wish that I had more background information before I started.

The actual writing is more paraphrasing than prose. It seems that it all comes from newspaper articles and such. It takes a while to get used the the style. I'm wondering as I read it if the author even has any interest in the truth, or just wants to push a story through.

This is an amazing book on the Zodiac case but the mental health mistakes detract from what is otherwise a carefully documented case. Similar to the mistakes Ann Rule makes in her book on Ted Bundy, Graysmith perpetuates a lot of misconceptions about mental health. If he ever does another edition of the book I hope he'll correct these. The author took great pains to give attention to detail on many counts and could do so with mental health issues too. Mistakes that should be addressed include:

*P. 58 "Leigh Allen is a schizophrenic personality" according to someone named Tucker. Granted Tucker is a lay person and wouldn't know there is no such thing (there is Schizophrenia; Schizotypal Personality Disorder and Schizoid Personality Disorder - the last two may be deleted when the DSM-V comes out). Graysmith could note this in a footnote.

*P. 131. "I wonder if Leigh had other personalities" This statement is in reference to how Allen might have changed his handwriting (this comes up on p . 291 too). The problem is there is no evidence that people can change their handwriting in Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder). The very idea of multiple personalities is suspect - we really can't even define what a "personality" is. The romanticizing and exaggerating of DID is just that and the media is swamped with such misinformation.

*Interesting reference to Jung's "Syzygy" on page 159. This comes up in Jung's Alchemical Studies (p. 232) referring to either of 2 opposite points in the orbit of a heavenly body - especially the moon - where it is in conjunction with or opposite to the sun. This is supposedly linked to the idea that the position of heavenly bodies affects human emotions (this position has not garnered much support in controlled studies). Graysmith notes on p. 159 that "...electromagnetic field changes of full and new moon phases, changes that affect the human nervous system and increase the brain's nervous activity." Down the page he claims MRI studies support the effect of the moon on biological tissue. A footnote is critical here as this is, as far as I know, an unsubstantiated claim. In 2010 a paper published in Actas Españolas De Psiquiatría ("Emergency psychiatric condition, mental illness behavior and lunar cycles: Is there a real or an imaginary association"?) concluded "The only empirical relationship of the moon phases with psychiatric behavior of the mentally ill in our sample was manifested as an increase in the incidence of cases and greater disruption of sleep patterns." Another paper published in 2008 in Current Biology (Human responses to geophysical daily, annual and lunar cycles) concluded "Lunar cycles had, and continue to have, an influence upon human culture, though despite a persistent belief that our mental health and other behaviours are modulated by the phase of the moon, there is no solid evidence that human biology is in any way regulated by the lunarcycle." To be fair I did find one study from Bosnia that suggested a correlation between lunar cycles and seizure activity in children but the results were preliminary and tentative.

*On p. 162 Graysmith writes "once a paranoid schizophrenic is into his mid-thirties (if he does not kill himself), the rage may burn itself out or go into remission. If Zodiac had symbolically died, then the killer might lead the rest of his life uneventfully. He might not recall he had once been Zodiac" This is highly unlikely. First off Schizophrenia proper (paranoid and otherwise) does not go into remission. As far as we know it is a chronic condition. It seems that Graysmith is referring to Anti-Social Personality Disorder here - that can "mellow" with age but the chance of someone totally blocking out violent memories is almost "nil." People who have been traumatized suffer from the memories which is why they get PTSD. If they could fully block them out they may not develop PTSD. Again on p. 177 Graysmith refers to "lock the details of his acts out of his consciousness." There is no evidence I know of that people can do this. If the author is aware of any, he should add a footnote.

*Similar to the last note on p. 317 Graysmith notes that psychopaths "usually outgrow it in their later years..." and this would be true in some cases of AntiSocial Personality Disorder. Some, but not all.

*P. 209 Graysmith refers to a conversation where "five different personalities" are discussed. As noted above, it doesn't work like this.

*There are a lot of references to hypnosis beginning on p. 210. It should be noted that currently there is debate on whether or not there is any state of consciousness called a "hypnotic trance" that is qualitatively different from waking consciousness. See my chapter on States of Consciousness in Integral Psychotherapy: Inside Out/Outside In

*On page 231 Graysmith writes of discussions with psychiatrists where psychosis and schizophrenia are discussed in psychodynamic terms. The condition today is believed to be a brain disease though we still have not figured out the etiology. The psychodynamic interpretations, while sexier and more compelling in written form, are not valid. To be fair at the time the Zodiac suspect was treated (1970s) psychodynamic thinking was still in vogue.

*P. 269 the author uses the word "schizophrenic" to refer to multiple personalities. This is totally wrong ("His Jekyll-Hyde quality depicted the schizophrenic qualities of a cultured man possessed by bestial desires"). This is a common misunderstanding in the lay public but should be corrected in books claiming to pay attention to detail. The word "schizophrenia" is used so many ways in this book the reader is left to wonder what Graysmith actually means by it.

*P. 281 Graysmith uses the phrase "borderline psychotic" but it is a meaningless term. It also perpetuates the negative practice of referring to people by their symptoms or states of mind which dehumanizes patients. To be fair, this is common in the lay public but Graysmith should avoid perpetuating the misunderstanding.

Again, don't get me wrong - I really learned a lot in reading this book and admire the dedication Graysmith practiced in pulling all this together. My guess is that with Zodiac we were dealing with Anti-Social Personality Disorder overall. He seemed too organized to suffer from any form of Schizophrenia.

A hard very detailed read. Well researched, but a little hard to follow at times.