Most Evil: Avenger, Zodiac, and the Further Serial Murders of Dr. George Hill Hodel

This sequel by Steve Hodel to Black Dahlia Avenger shows how this genius, his father, used his intelligence to lure victims whom he would murder. Saying he was/is not a psychoanalyst, he offered only small bits of conjecture about how his father's mental illness developed, that is, his mother's severe restrictions when he was a small boy. Withal, the book is gripping, demonstrating the author's ability to remain at a good level of objectivity. I bought and read it without hesitation.

Okay, when I first saw this I thought, "Yeah, right." But Hodel makes an interesting case with Most Evil, presenting some compelling evidence based on his 20+ years as a police officer. That's what makes this book different right off the bat - it's presented by someone who's made a living investigating crime, so Hodel has an inside edge. In his first book, Hodel steadily points a finger of guilt at his father for being the infamous Black Dahlia Murderer. With Most Evil, Hodel presents a ton of evidence asserting that his father was responsible for quite a few other murders, including the Zodiac killings. Hodel presents a steady stream of evidence to support claims that many will find far-fetched - after all, when you say that your father was the man behind the unsolved (?) Black Dahlia, Zodiac and other murders, you better bring the right cards to the game. It's like saying "I know who committed the Jack the Ripper murders" - you're automatically going on the defensive whether you like it or not. Hodel sidesteps the issue in Most Evil, presenting a ton of material with a steady hand. Hodel relies on his polce experience (as well as his first hand knowledge)and steadily peels the onion with evidence. After you read Most Evil you'll come away with a much better understanding of the cases, and it's as if Hodel is saying "My father did this - maybe" - he doesn't ram the evidence down your throat. He shows you his cards and let's you make the choice. And they're some set of cards. Unfortunately, there are those who don't ever want these cases to be solved, and have already made up their minds before they even opened the book.

Some time ago, I wrote a review for [...] (Jan's Angle) on Steve Hodel's 2006 edition of The Black Dahlia Avenger - A Genius for Murder. Three years prior, I had read the 2003 edition of the book bearing the same title in preparation for review in the now sadly defunct Cult Movies Magazine. In 2003 and 2006 I had the top of my head blown off by Mr. Hodel's investigation of his father's dark deeds. Now three years later, Steve Hodel with Ralph Pezzullo have presented more mind blowing evidence rearding his father's and other sensationalized serial murders. "The Chicago Lipstick Murders," The Jigsaw Murder," and the famed "Zodiac" killings are all re-examined in this articulately written book, and woven together with the crimes of Dr. George Hodel, "The Black Dahlia Avenger." If this book had been penned by anyone else other than Mr. Hodel (a two decades-plus homicide detective), I would have been skeptical of the claims on the cover of this attractively packaged volume. But Hodel's credentials are so far above reproach, and his deductive reasoning is so spot-on, that within the first two hours of ownership I consumed sixty pages. In this writer's opinion, Mr. Hodel is a true life Sherlock Holmes or Charlie Chan - but at the cost of losing his father to murder and madness. Most Evil connects all these hideous crimes together, and reveals the motivation for the slaying of Elizabeth Short. I'm sure I'm going to be reading this book a second time, because not only is this work a compelling read, but the twists and turns and intricacies of Dr. George Hill Hodel's mind are not absorbed in a single reading. While this book contains a mountain of circumstantial evidence against Dr. Hodel, his son realizes as a former homicide detective, that after Most Evil presents the case, law enforcement officials must follow through for a 'Case Closed' verdict. Steve Hodel, at the end of this investigation, writes that he accepts his fate in all this. But one can only wonder what might have happened if Steve Hodel had discovered any of this information while his father was alive. We'll never know. A 'Must Read' for true crime buffs. Jan Alan Henderon, author of Speeding Bullet and co-author of Behind the Crimson Cape: The Cinema of George Reeves [...]

I really like the 2007 Zodiac movie with Robert Downey Jr. and I've seen it a bunch of times and thought it was somewhat convincing in claiming that Arther Leigh Allen was the Zodiac Killer. But this book (Most Evil) blows that theory out of the water. If that map with the circle "radian" thing showing where his crimes were commited was drawn correctly by Steve's "Mensa" friend, that pretty does it for me. Unless there were 5 or 6 other guys around the world obsessed with the same movies and art and enjoyed killing people in an effort to create art through murder, Hodel does a convincing job that all of these crimes (Avenger, Jigsaw, Zodiac) were committed by the same person and that person was Dr. George Hodel. I'm looking forward to more info shaking out now that his name has been linked to all these crimes. There has to be some way to conclusively identify the Zodiac! Anyway the book with have your head spinning trying figured out what really went down. The case is like an X-File except these murders really did happen. The truth is out there.