MOST EVIL
By Steve Hodel
with Ralph Pezzullo
Dutton Published by The Penguin Group, 2009

Some time ago, I wrote a review for GlasshousePresents.com (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 regarding 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.

For more information about Most Evil go to www.stevehodel.com


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