If you are a fan of true crime, we have good news for you!
Paul Holes, co-host of the podcast Jensen and Holes: The Murder Squad, is going on tour to celebrate the release of his upcoming memoir Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases.
Paul Holes is a former cold-case investigator and was involved in solving the Golden State Killer case. His new memoir is published by Celadon Books and will be released on April 26. The memoir will examine his career solving cold cases and the impact on his life:
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.
Crime solving for me is more complex than the challenge of the hunt, or the process of piecing together a scientific puzzle. The thought of good people suffering drives me, for better or worse, to the point of obsession.
People always ask how I am able to detach from the horrors of my work. Part of it is an innate capacity to compartmentalize; the rest is experience and exposure, and I’ve had plenty of both. But I have always taken pride in the fact that I can keep my feelings locked up to get the job done. It’s only been recently that it feels like all that suppressed darkness is beginning to seep out.
When I look back at my long career, there is a lot I am proud of. I have caught some of the most notorious killers of the twenty-first century and brought justice and closure for their victims and families. I want to tell you about a lifetime solving these cold cases, from Laci Peterson to Jaycee Dugard to the Pittsburg homicides to, yes, my twenty-year-long hunt for the Golden State Killer.
But a deeper question eats at me as I ask myself, at what cost? I have sacrificed relationships, joy—even fatherhood—because the pursuit of evil always came first. Did I make the right choice? It’s something I grapple with every day. Yet as I stand in the spot where a young girl took her last breath, as I look into the eyes of her family, I know that, for me, there has never been a choice. “I don’t know if I can solve your case,” I whisper. “But I promise I will do my best.”
It is a promise I know I can keep.
Holes will be touring in US bookstores from April 26 to May 10. You can see all the dates below:
- April 26: The Strand, New York City
- April 27: Anderson’s Bookstore, Naperville, IL
- April 28: Xuyahoga Library: Parma-Snow Branch, Cuyahoga, OH
- April 29-30: Crime Con with Writer’s Block, Las Vegas, NV
- May 4: Powell’s Books, Portland, OR
- May 5: Book Passage, San Francisco, CA
- May 5: Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, CA
- May 6: Capital Books, Sacramento, CA
- May : National Writers Series, Traverse City, MI
You can find more information about the book’s tour and about tickets on the Celadon Books website.
Paul Holes announced the tour on Twitter:
Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases is already available to preorder as a hardcover, an e-book and an audiobook on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
