A sexual sadist, his pleasure was torture and murder. His first victims were a teenage couple, stalked and shot dead in a lover's lane. After another slaying, he sent his first mocking note to authorities, promising he would kill again. The official tally of his victims was six. He claimed thirty-seven. The real toll may have reached fifty. He was never caught."After jack the Ripper and before Son of Sam there is only one name their equal in terror: the deadly, elusive, and mysterious Zodiac. Since 1963 the hooded mass murderer has terrified the city of San Francisco and the Bay Area with a string of brutal killings. Zodiac, in taunting letters sent to the newspapers, has hidden clues to his identity by using cunning ciphers that have defied the greatest code breaking minds of the CIA, the FBI, and NSA."—from the book

ROBERT GRAYSMITH, national best-selling author of Zodiac, The Sleeping Lady, and The Murder of Bob Crane, was on the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969 when the killer's first letter arrived.