Denver Colorado Author/Journalist Zack Kopp Reviews "Most Evil II"

January 18, 2020
Los Angeles, California

For those that may have missed it I wanted to update and republish the below blog which was originally blogged by me some four years ago, on Feb 6, 2016.  Zack Kopp is a highly respected author/journalist and below is his articulate review of Most Evil II shortly after it published.

Again, my thanks, well wishes  and a shout out to Zack in Denver, Colorado.

 

February 6, 2016
Los Angeles, California

Zack Kopp

Denver, Colorado-based author/journalist Zack Kopp has written a follow-up review to my recently published, Most Evil II: Presenting the Follow-Up Investigation and Decryption of the 1970 Zodiac Cipher in Which the San Francisco Serial Killer Reveals His True Identity (Rare Bird Books 2015)

ZACK’s Feb 4, 2016, Book Review of Most Evil II

mostevilII cvr

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Zack’s Amazon Author Page:

Living by his wits in the blown out shell bottom of a ruined, crowded world, freelance writer ZACK KOPP has recently published four books with Magic Trash Press and more are coming soon, including a collection of essays called Where’s Kopp? and a revised edition of his first novel, Camp Elasticity. A creative artist of one kind or another from ever since, Kopp has served time as a freelance writer, citizen journalist, webzine editor and musician since 2009, and received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts in January of 2008, that magic year. He lives currently in Capitol Hill, Denver, Colorado.

Zack Kopp’s original book review published in Denver Examiner below is from Amazon.com
5.0 out of 5 stars A Decisive Step, February 5, 2016
This review is from: Most Evil II: Presenting the Follow-Up Investigation and Decryption of the 1970 Zodiac Cipher in which the San Francisco Serial Killer Reveals his True Identity (Paperback)

Author and subject of a life replete with synchronicity, former LAPD detective Steve Hodel may well have been the intended discoverer of his eccentric father George Hill Hodel’s secret of decades of surrealist serial murdering after following a series of influences deliberately planted by the father which would inevitably lead his son to unmask him. This theory has it that the author’s father, imitative artist George Hodel’s aim was to perpetrate a series of murders which would confound the public just as had the Surrealists’ art, believing fully that murder can be an art, and in this way do something no other had yet done with the Surrealist impulse. As author Steve Hodel has made clear in previous efforts, “The Black Dahlia Avenger” I and II and “MOST EVIL,” his father’s signature as a murderer lay in the deliberate inclusion of nods to writers, painters and thinkers of that genre, in particular Man Ray, a close friend, in details of his various killings. Not to say that Man Ray was complicit in the killer’s corruptions, but surrealism explicitly endorsed the violation of revered tropes, semantic, moral, and ethical, so he could hardly disapprove. A strong surrealist aspect links the Black Dahlia slaying to the Lipstick Killings in 1945 Chicago and the California Zodiac slayings in 1969. The killer also included phrasing and motifs from popular films of the time, such as “Sniper,” or “The Most Dangerous Game,” in the letters he sent to police.

Hodel’s identification of this and other “thoughtprints” linking his father to all of these and still further brutally artful slayings, such as the “Jigsaw Killings” in Manila, where his father kept an office for 15 years, has gained the support of notable personalities, including retired Los Angeles DA Stephen Kay of Manson Trial fame, and Oscar, Grammy, and Golden Globe Award-winning singer/songwriter T-Bone Burnett of “Zombieland” fame, who says, “From this distance, there is no doubt that George Hodel committed/performed theatrical murders in several cities over several decades. That a mad doctor’s son grew up to be a detective and solved a master criminal’s surrealist crimes—and it was his father—is mind-blowing. But, there it is. My deepest and sincerest respect for [Steve’s] fearless and brilliant investigation into a profound darkness that [he has] brought into a penetrating light.” This reporter is also humbled by the bittersweet magnitude of the younger Hodel’s life mission and legacy, involving not only unmasking his father but redeeming the formerly benighted victims, devoting himself to transmuting that unsavory history.

SKH Note to Zack:

Thanks Zack for an intelligent and studied review of both my books. Very rewarding to read and discover someone really “Gets It” and then follows-up with a highly articulate rendering of the facts and evidence. Greatly appreciate your communication of the “Murder as a Fine Art” crime signatures and surrealist linkage. Hope to meet you in person in Denver this year.

2 Comments

  1. Stacy Polk on January 20, 2020 at 4:46 pm

    Why hasn’t Steve’s DNA been tested in relation to the DNA on one of the Zodiac killers letters, with piece of victims shirt included, sent to police? Steve’s DNA could close the Zodiac killers cases.

    Stacy, So. Calif.

    • Steve Hodel on January 20, 2020 at 6:33 pm

      Stacy P: Because no law enforcement agency has any CONFIRMED Zodiac DNA. Does not exist. All they have are a few partial “possibles” that don’t match each other so could belong to anyone. A reporter, a mailman, a detective, anyone.
      So, until they get CONFIRMED Zodiac DNA I am not going to provide my father’s DNA. (I have his full DNA profile.) skh

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