Robert Graysmith

Seis asesinatos probados, quizá hasta treinta y siete (según sus cartas) o cuarenta y nueve (según algunos investigadores), tres supervivientes: entre 1969 y 1974, la ciudad de San Francisco y todo el norte de California vivieron bajo el terror de un asesino multiple que se hacia llamar Zodiac, que escribia mensajes en clave a los periodicos y retaba insistentemente a la policia. Pese a una interminable lista de pistas y sospechosos, y en un clima de violencia generalizada, nunca fue capturado. Robert Graysmith, que trabajaba en The San Francisco Chronicle, el periodico que mayor numero de cartas del asesino recibio, se lanzo de lleno a la investigacion del caso y reunio sus pesquisas en Zodiac, un libro clasico en su genero y un best seller desde su publicacion. Zodiac ha inspirado varias peliculas, entre ellas Harry el sucio de Don Siegel, con Clint Eastwood, y recientemente Zodiac, de David Fincher.

"Ich tote Menschen, weil es mir so viel Spa macht."Jahrelang versetzte ein als Zodiac beruhmt gewordener Serienkiller Kalifornien in Angst und Schrecken und spielte mit der Polizei ein grausames Katz-und-Maus-Spiel. Regisseur David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club) verfilmt die Geschichte einer unglaublichen Mordserie mit u. a. Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr. und Gary Oldman.

During the 1920s, in more than a dozen cities, over four years, and across two continents, women were being butchered. Eyewitneses claim the perpetrator was a hulking Bible-carrying brute who lumbered on all fours, and laughed maniacally with each new slaughter. The crimes haunted San Francisco Police Captain Charles Dullea, the last honest cop in one of the most notoriously corrupt departments in the country. But nothing could have prepared Dullea for where the case- and the truth-would take him.

Marli Renfro was Janet Leighs body double in the Hitchcock classic Psycho. When she disappeared, it was believed she was the victim of a serial killer. It was a mystery that took decades to solve-and a crime that could only have happened in Hollywood.

Entre 1926 à 1930, dans une douzaine de villes à travers les États-Unis, un homme aux longs bras de gorille et au rire nerveux étrangle ses victimes avant de les disséquer au rasoir dans un simulacre

En 1988, Marli Renfro, la femme qui avait servi de doublure à Janet Leigh pour la célèbre scène de la douche du film Psychose d’Alfred Hitchcock, est brutalement assassinée. Simple coïncidence ? À l’

The first biography of the little-known real-life Tom Sawyer (a friend of Mark Twain during his brief tenure as a California newspaper reporter), told through a harrowing account of Sawyers involvement in the hunt for a serial arsonist who terrorized mid-nineteenth century San Francisco.When 28-year-old San Francisco Daily Morning Call reporter Mark Twain met Tom Sawyer at a local bathhouse in 1863, he was seeking a subject for his first novel. As Twain steamed, played cards, and drank beer with Sawyer (a volunteer firefighter, customs inspector, and local hero responsible for having saved ninety lives at sea), he had second thoughts about Shirley Tempest, his proposed book about a local girl firefighter, and began to envision a novel of wider scope. Twain learned that a dozen years earlier the then eighteen-year-old New York-born Sawyer had been a Torch Boy, one of the youths who raced ahead of the volunteer firemens hand-drawn engines at night carrying torches to light the way, always aware that a single spark could reduce the all-wood city of San Francisco to ashes in an instant. At that time a mysterious serial arsonist known by some as The Lightkeeper was in the process of burning San Francisco to the ground six times in eighteen months the most disastrous and costly series of fires ever experienced by any American metropolis.Black Fire is the most thorough and accurate account of Sawyers relationship with Mark Twain and of the six devastating incendiary fires that baptized one of the modern worlds favorite cities. Set amid a scorched landscape of burning roads, melting iron warehouses, exploding buildings, and deadly gangs who extorted and ruled by fear, it includes the never-before-told stories of Sawyers heroism during the sinking of the steamship Independence and the crucial role Sawyer and the Torch Boys played in solving the mystery of the Lightkeeper. Drawing on archival sources such as actual San Francisco newspaper interviews with Sawyer and the handwritten police depositions of the arrest of the Lightkeeper, bestselling author Robert Graysmith vividly portrays the gritty, corrupt, and violent world of Gold Rush-era San Francisco, overrun with gunfighters, hooligans, hordes of gold prospectors, crooked politicians, and vigilantes. By chronicling how Sawyer took it upon himself to investigate, expose, and stop the arsonist, Black Fire details for the first time Sawyers remarkable life and illustrates why Twain would later feel compelled to name his iconic character after his San Francisco buddy when he wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Robert Graysmith reveals the true identity of ZodiacAmericas most elusive serial killer.Between December 1968 and October 1969 a hooded serial killer called Zodiac terrorized San Francisco. Claiming responsibility for thirty-seven murders, he manipulated the media with warnings, dares, and bizarre cryptograms that baffled FBI code-breakers. Then as suddenly as the murders began, Zodiac disappeared into the Bay Area fog.After painstaking investigation and more than thirty years of research, Robert Graysmith finally exposes Zodiacs true identity. With overwhelming evidence he reveals the twisted private life that led to the crimes, and provides startling theories as to why they stopped. Americas greatest unsolved mystery has finally been solved.INCLUDES PHOTOS AND A COMPLETE REPRODUCTION OF ZODIACS LETTERS

"This is the Zodiac speaking. I like killing people because it is so much fun...the most thrilling experience..."This shocking true crime classic is now a major movie. A sexual sadist, the Zodiac''s pleasure was torture and murder. He taunted the authorities with mocking notes telling where he would strike next. The official tally of his victims was six. He claimed 37 dead. He was never caught. Author Robert Graysmith tells the inside story of the hunt for the hooded killer, and finally reveals his possible true identity.The new movie "Zodiac" is based on this book. Directed by David Fincher ("Fight Club"), it stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Graysmith himself, Robert Downey Jr and Chloe Sevigny.