This book was witten by Robert Colby and published September 1971. It covers 17 California murders from the Black Dahlia murder in 1947 to the Zodiac murders and Manson Family murders in 1969. All of the crimes in the book are written up as short stories.

There is nothing new really but the book does mention a couple of things we have discusssed lately. First of all there was discussion about when the "By Knife" written on Bryan Hartnell’s car door was revealed to the public. Everything on the car door except that is in the book so I guess by late 1971 that info still hadn’t been revealed.

Another thing mentioned is the third piece of Paul Stine’s shirt that was mailed in either the November 8th or 9th letters. It’s quite possible that the author wrote this story entirely from newspaper articles. It was written long before Graysmith’s first book though.