Doesn’t work as an audiobook.

One can only hope that Hodel did a better job as a murder investigator when he worked for the LAPD than he is doing in his retirement. The entire basis on his case comes down to his interpretation of photographs and hand writing analysis of scanned documents–all of which could have been told in half the time, and none of which works as an audiobook without visuals.

His connections are tenuous at best and in some cases, outright ridiculous. His comparison of the crime as his father’s homage to Man Ray’s Minotaur lacks any reference to what is probably the most notable feature of the work–the absence of the model’s head. Would someone who had gone through all the effort to recreate the effect of the photograph (in what Hodel claims to be in intimate detail) and who had already brutally bisected and mutilated a body, then hesitate to decapitate the victim to achieve the full effect?

In addition to the frustrating and gaping holes in the story overall, the first half of the narration is done in such a deadpan and awkward cadence that the listener is often more focused on the reading than on what is being read.

Save your time. After 18 hours invested, I don’t feel like I know anything more of any substance in relation to this crime.