Most famous for his work on Laci Peterson, Jaycee Dugard, and the Golden State Killer, cold case investigator Paul Holes goes deep on the cases he couldn’t shake and the personal toll of internalizing others’ trauma in Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases.  If you’re the family of a victim, you’d pray your manila folder ends up on his desk.  But if you were in Holes’ family, you were just hoping he’d leave that selfsame cubicle.  Every now and then Holes blows a long-dormant case wide open, but it comes at significant psychic cost. Side effects of delayed justice include divorce, night sweats, and increased bourbon consumption.  Family members wondered if they even knew the man muttering case details to himself.

The forensic vigilante’s obsessions additionally found him at odds with his superiors when reaching out of jurisdiction.  Call it cliché, but Holes is a loose cannon who doesn’t do things by the book.  So, he turned in his badge after 27 years, today working as a  strong proponent of DNA sequencing, resurrecting lost causes with fresh eyes and fresher technology.  Not sold yet?  Just pen a letter to Joseph DeAngelo for a testimonial.