Z =Zodiac Unmasked by Robert Graysmith

"Last March Zodiac had been writing industriously, casting his net wide; spreading his word southward."

Zodiac Unmasked was the first book I read in 2025, I've managed to hold off posting the review for this specific day. Woohoo! I made it. It's also a first for me, the first true crime novel I've ever read. I originally wanted to get Zodiac by Robert Graysmith, you know the one with the infamous yellow cover. But it appears that wasn't available by e-book and I was too lazy to go to the store or library to look for a hardcopy.

Zodiac Unmasked is dedicated to exploring the theory that Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac Killer, based on witness testimony and circumstantial and coincidental evidence. It also explores additional murders, assaults, and abductions during that time period that may have been perpetrated by the Zodiac.

I found this book to be very well written and well researched, taking us through the crimes and how they relate to the timeline of Arthur Leigh Allen's life. Some of additional crimes, considered to be the work of the Zodiac but unconfirmed, seem farfetched to me. I know he said in a letter that he was going to make his kills look random, but some of the crimes suggest to me that an additional serial killer, or even serial killers, may have been active during the 60s and 70s.

The book is repetitive at times, different profilers giving the same profile over and over again, with witness testimony being given and then regiven to make a point.

Over all, I liked the book, but I found myself disliking the author as the story went on. I didn't particularly like RG telling us how Leigh was feeling at any given time when the author has no way to know that. Assigning emotions to the man made the story more engaging, but it also made the story slightly fictitious. 

And maybe the author did know exactly how Leigh felt because Robert Graysmith admits to stalking his main suspect: "More unsettling, Leigh had caught me watching him more than once...I turned and looked directly into his eyes." This proclaimed expert on Zodiac can't be that smart if he admits to a criminal act in a book, and how smart is it to stalk a suspected serial killer?

As the saying goes, he's like a dog with a bone. His private investigation into the Zodiac killings goes beyond a writer doing his due diligence and turns into an unhealthy obsession. And despite their attempts to retire and step away from the case, Robert Graysmith has no qualms about dragging the lead investigators back into the mess over and over again.

Zodiac Unmasked goes on to discuss copycat murders and the murderers who also called themselves Zodiac. Robert Graysmith says that he wrote the original Zodiac so all the information pertaining to the Zodiac case would be located in one place. Since the communication between departments was so piss poor at the time, the lead investigators are portrayed as being grateful for the help or astounded by what they didn't know about their own case. And the psychos of the world, from New York to Japan seemingly found their muse with the publication of a single book.

I'm new to true crime so I'm not sure how it should read. I found the writing to be very good, the story to be creeptastic, and while I don't know if Arthur Leigh Allen really was the Zodiac, I certainly believe that it's likely. I feel the book would hve been better if the author had been more likeable but sometimes things are what they are, and I had no problem giving this book four stars.