Reading Paul Holes Through the Lens of #MeToo

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Paul Holes’s true crime memoir, Unmasked, is one of the most fascinating books I have read this year. As a child, I used to love and still love watching shows like Law and Order, and it’s spin-off, SVU, Mindhunter, as well as, listening to Forensic Files while driving. I am drawn into the socio-cultural and psychological make up of the dark side of humanity. Perhaps, because I work with themes of social justice. What are we as human beings capable of? Why do perpetrators do what they do? Paul’s memoir opens his binders of cases that were solved and some that remain unknown, including the Case of Golden State Killer.

Holes’s memoir begins with his journey into becoming an investigator by beginning to work on a lab. His narrative is interspersed with how the work he does - his obsession - makes him often too distant from his family members and resulting in failed marriages. This was something that I noticed in Simone St. James’s Book of Cold Cases as well. In light of the #MeToo movement, it’s interesting to see that so many cases of gender-based violence often turned to cold cases in the 1970s and 80s. In the NeMLA conference, there was a panel on #MeToo which featured an Irish crime fiction writer and she talked about how fictional crime stories often portray victim-survivors. Hole’s memoir, in that sense, complicates the stories of victims and their narrative in that he often shares stories of victims who struggled and fought back.

I love the genre of memoirs, and this was a refreshing read.

Thank you Paul Holes and Celandon books for the gifted copy of this memoir. Paul’s memoir released on April 26th!