Anyone who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s probably has an opinion or at least some curiosity about the Zodiac killer. Never definitively identified, this serial killer was known for targeting young couples and following up his grisly crimes with letters and cards sent to various media outlets in the Bay Area with taunting messages, including several cryptograms. 

I lived very near both Lake Berryessa and Lake Herman Road, two locations of Zodiac attacks on couples in parked cars.  I also was a college student, and I had a very weird professor who taught computer science at night and supervised an IT department by day. I was completely freaked out by the idea that he was the Zodiac because one night after class, he took me for a drive that included Lake Herman Road, and showed me the giant flashlight on the floor of the back seat, which had clear red plastic wrap covering the lens, which he said looked just like a police officer in the rear view mirror if he came up behind a car. EEEK! 

Anyway, about the book In The Shadow of Mt. Diablo by Mike Rodelli, which I received from Indigo River Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for this review. Mr. Rodelli states that he knows without doubt who the murderer was, and he has spent years researching and documenting the case (and no, it isn’t my former professor). In his book, subtitled “The Shocking True Identity of the Zodiac Killer, Rodelli provides an exhaustively researched, fully documented book. There are a ton of footnotes to support his claim, and it differs completely from Robert Graysmith’s book Zodiac, in which he identified Zodiac as Arthur Leigh Allen…but  a partial DNA match from the saliva on the stamps used by the Zodiac Killer to send the letters and cards didn’t match him. Attempts to use the method of DNA matching using genealogy databases (the technique used to identify the Golden State Killer) have not been successful as of May, 2021, and the case remains open in San Francisco, Vallejo, and both Napa and Solano Counties. 

Yes, the book is heavy on detail. Yes, Mr. Rodelli has done a ton of research. But I’m not convinced the Zodiac is the person identified in Rodelli’s book — although many people seem to believe that he was, or at least that the man identified hid the actual Zodiac Killer in his San Francisco apartment after one of the crimes. I think the book definitely needed an editor to make the presentation of the results of Rodelli’s hard work more coherent and readable. It’s a story that still fascinates many people, and this book will only add to the interest. And, TBH, since Arthur Leigh Allen and all the other named suspects have been ruled out, I still think my professor is a possibility — especially since he also looks as much like the sketch of Zodiac as the man named in this book. Two stars.