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How to Find Zodiac
Dear Reader,
This is not the Zodiac speaking. The one thing that I ask of you is this, please read this book. It is called How to Find Zodiac. Being that this book is about the Zodiac, it offers a new suspect. The theory is probably correct. At the moment the theory is unproven. But the idea is a bomb waiting to go massive. Can you see the flaws in the hunting method or will you just agree and say case closed. Either way one thing is true. Zodiac can never look and seem the same after you read this book. It was written by Jarett Kobek.
This is not the Zodiac speaking. The one thing that I ask of you is this, please read this book. It is called How to Find Zodiac. Being that this book is about the Zodiac, it offers a new suspect. The theory is probably correct. At the moment the theory is unproven. But the idea is a bomb waiting to go massive. Can you see the flaws in the hunting method or will you just agree and say case closed. Either way one thing is true. Zodiac can never look and seem the same after you read this book. It was written by Jarett Kobek.
302 pages, Paperback
Published February 18, 2022
15 people are currently reading
557 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
May 28, 2022
Mmm, not too sure what to make of this one. After reading Kobek's previous (and excellent) Motor Spirit: The Long Hunt for the Zodiac where the he goes through the Zodiac killer case in great detail and in the process debunks a lot of the theories as to who the killer might be, he then proceeds in this book to come up with his own theory. I'm a skeptic by nature and not convinced.
Very early on (after about 20 pages) he's homed on a specific person purely on the basis of a Google search and then spends the rest of the book looking for evidence to back his hypothesis that this person is Zodiac. This seems to me to be the wrong way around. Evidence should lead to a suspect not isolating a specific person and then looking for proof.
However Kobek is no fool and I'm wondering if this whole thing is some sort of hoax to draw people into believing this theory.
All the evidence is based on the suspect's writings across many decades (I'm keeping this vague as I don't want to divulge any spoilers) and there's no hard forensic proof at all.
Having said that Kobek does unearth some interesting concordances with Zodiac - so who knows, maybe he has found him?
Very early on (after about 20 pages) he's homed on a specific person purely on the basis of a Google search and then spends the rest of the book looking for evidence to back his hypothesis that this person is Zodiac. This seems to me to be the wrong way around. Evidence should lead to a suspect not isolating a specific person and then looking for proof.
However Kobek is no fool and I'm wondering if this whole thing is some sort of hoax to draw people into believing this theory.
All the evidence is based on the suspect's writings across many decades (I'm keeping this vague as I don't want to divulge any spoilers) and there's no hard forensic proof at all.
Having said that Kobek does unearth some interesting concordances with Zodiac - so who knows, maybe he has found him?
April 10, 2022
Convinced me. “Doerr was Zodiac.”
I wish Kobek would do more press (or more “press” would reach out to him). The book is a revelation. Have there been further inquiries? Doerr had a daughter. Where is she? Has anyone reached out to her? Kobek gave a lengthy interview to Bret Easton Ellis, and said the police haven’t expressed much interest in his findings.
I wish Kobek would do more press (or more “press” would reach out to him). The book is a revelation. Have there been further inquiries? Doerr had a daughter. Where is she? Has anyone reached out to her? Kobek gave a lengthy interview to Bret Easton Ellis, and said the police haven’t expressed much interest in his findings.
March 20, 2022
Wow. He actually did it. He solved the Zodiac case (and cracked two of the ciphers as a result)!
August 11, 2023
A must-read for the Zodiac obsessed but also for people that just want this case to be solved. I have to hand it to Kobek, his first book didn't quite impress me, however this follow-up where he zones in on who he believes is the Zodiac is fantastic and jaw-dropping. There are a few editorial mistakes but nowhere near the plethora that was in Motor Spirit. Also, Kobek does not insert his voice a lot in this book like he previously did. Instead, he switched to referring to himself in the third person. I thought it was a good and necessary change.
But did Kobek solve the mystery of who the Zodiac Killer was? I honestly believe he did.
But did Kobek solve the mystery of who the Zodiac Killer was? I honestly believe he did.
June 30, 2025
(SPOILERS)
How to Find Zodiac, Jarrett Kobek's sequel to Motor Spirit: The Long Hunt for the Zodiac, explores a lead he discovered while sifting through Bay Area fanzines following a tip provided by a friend. The introduction grabbed my attention, as Kobek delves into the significance of the Tim Holt #30 comic book and the strong likelihood that Zodiac owned this piece of media, due to its references to “By Rope, By Knife, By Fire, By Gun,” which Zodiac explicitly echoed in his Halloween card to Paul Avery. In essence, Kobek argues that because the comic is so scarce and Zodiac likely referenced it directly, it could be a major factor in narrowing down potential suspects.
Kobek contacts a friend, an expert in Golden Age comics named Dave, who suggests consulting fanzines to identify potential comic collectors in the Vallejo area. Fanzines were essentially the 1960s version of Reddit, where interested parties could correspond and publish short pieces on any topic of their choosing. At this point, my interest was piqued. It seemed that if one could determine who owned this extremely rare Tim Holt comic book in the Vallejo area, that might directly lead to identifying the Zodiac. However, this is where the book veers off course.
Kobek spends the remainder of the book parsing the fanzines of a Vallejo resident named Paul Doerr. Doerr exhibits interests in many of the same topics as Zodiac, including ANFO explosives (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil), comic books, navigation, cryptography, and space exploration. He also bears a slight resemblance to the famous police sketch of Zodiac, although this is a stretch, as the image is so generic it could resemble almost any middle-aged man in the 1960s. Kobek also offers a solution to the Z13 and Z32 ciphers using a Greek palindrome he located deep within one of Doerr’s writings. This claim is highly questionable, as the small character count in these ciphers makes their solution incredibly improbable, if not outright impossible. Most damningly, Doerr makes a throwaway comment in one of his fanzines suggesting that he may have killed several people. Kobek argues that this constitutes sufficient evidence to suggest that Doerr is Zodiac or at least a highly compelling suspect, which is a fair, if ambitious, conclusion.
While the concept is compelling, the actual content of the book is dense and often unengaging. It’s clear that Kobek put a tremendous number of hours into his research, but the product on the page frequently reads like 150 pages from a random, hedonistic, science-fiction-obsessed psychopath’s blog from 50 years ago. Kobek’s connections between Doerr’s musings and the actual Zodiac case are few and far between, and I often found myself wondering what the point of much of the content was. Ironically, the man who spent much of his previous book criticizing Robert Graysmith for failing to provide substantial evidence against Arthur Leigh Allen ends up suffering from many of the same shortcomings.
Kobek was critical of Graysmith for having an overactive imagination and for filling in the blanks in the Zodiac case. However, he often relies on making major logical leaps to get his point across. If you tilt your head and squint, many of the connections Kobek makes seem plausible, but it is never quite an exact fit. Like Graysmith, Kobek seems to fall victim to confirmation bias, seeking desperately to extract kernels of evidence from hundreds of thousands of words. I kept trudging through the pages, waiting for my efforts to be rewarded with a juicy, damning piece of information, but that reward rarely came.
Despite my criticism, I do believe Kobek was onto something. In a town as small as Vallejo, with around 40,000 residents, a man with the same interests as Zodiac is certainly worthy of further investigation. However, without more evidence beyond Doerr’s writings and publicly available background information, he remains essentially a ghost. Through no fault of Kobek’s, with Doerr having passed away, there is no real way to certify the findings short of the incredibly unlikely event that new Zodiac evidence or DNA is discovered in an attic or some other source.
As an amateur Zodiac sleuth, I found myself fairly disappointed with the Paul Doerr lead, but I do hope that more information eventually comes to light. Kobek’s sequel provides just enough detail to arouse suspicion and pique my interest, but not enough to convince me that Doerr was definitively, or even likely, the Zodiac. I commend Kobek for his obvious effort, but ultimately, I was not fully convinced.
How to Find Zodiac, Jarrett Kobek's sequel to Motor Spirit: The Long Hunt for the Zodiac, explores a lead he discovered while sifting through Bay Area fanzines following a tip provided by a friend. The introduction grabbed my attention, as Kobek delves into the significance of the Tim Holt #30 comic book and the strong likelihood that Zodiac owned this piece of media, due to its references to “By Rope, By Knife, By Fire, By Gun,” which Zodiac explicitly echoed in his Halloween card to Paul Avery. In essence, Kobek argues that because the comic is so scarce and Zodiac likely referenced it directly, it could be a major factor in narrowing down potential suspects.
Kobek contacts a friend, an expert in Golden Age comics named Dave, who suggests consulting fanzines to identify potential comic collectors in the Vallejo area. Fanzines were essentially the 1960s version of Reddit, where interested parties could correspond and publish short pieces on any topic of their choosing. At this point, my interest was piqued. It seemed that if one could determine who owned this extremely rare Tim Holt comic book in the Vallejo area, that might directly lead to identifying the Zodiac. However, this is where the book veers off course.
Kobek spends the remainder of the book parsing the fanzines of a Vallejo resident named Paul Doerr. Doerr exhibits interests in many of the same topics as Zodiac, including ANFO explosives (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil), comic books, navigation, cryptography, and space exploration. He also bears a slight resemblance to the famous police sketch of Zodiac, although this is a stretch, as the image is so generic it could resemble almost any middle-aged man in the 1960s. Kobek also offers a solution to the Z13 and Z32 ciphers using a Greek palindrome he located deep within one of Doerr’s writings. This claim is highly questionable, as the small character count in these ciphers makes their solution incredibly improbable, if not outright impossible. Most damningly, Doerr makes a throwaway comment in one of his fanzines suggesting that he may have killed several people. Kobek argues that this constitutes sufficient evidence to suggest that Doerr is Zodiac or at least a highly compelling suspect, which is a fair, if ambitious, conclusion.
While the concept is compelling, the actual content of the book is dense and often unengaging. It’s clear that Kobek put a tremendous number of hours into his research, but the product on the page frequently reads like 150 pages from a random, hedonistic, science-fiction-obsessed psychopath’s blog from 50 years ago. Kobek’s connections between Doerr’s musings and the actual Zodiac case are few and far between, and I often found myself wondering what the point of much of the content was. Ironically, the man who spent much of his previous book criticizing Robert Graysmith for failing to provide substantial evidence against Arthur Leigh Allen ends up suffering from many of the same shortcomings.
Kobek was critical of Graysmith for having an overactive imagination and for filling in the blanks in the Zodiac case. However, he often relies on making major logical leaps to get his point across. If you tilt your head and squint, many of the connections Kobek makes seem plausible, but it is never quite an exact fit. Like Graysmith, Kobek seems to fall victim to confirmation bias, seeking desperately to extract kernels of evidence from hundreds of thousands of words. I kept trudging through the pages, waiting for my efforts to be rewarded with a juicy, damning piece of information, but that reward rarely came.
Despite my criticism, I do believe Kobek was onto something. In a town as small as Vallejo, with around 40,000 residents, a man with the same interests as Zodiac is certainly worthy of further investigation. However, without more evidence beyond Doerr’s writings and publicly available background information, he remains essentially a ghost. Through no fault of Kobek’s, with Doerr having passed away, there is no real way to certify the findings short of the incredibly unlikely event that new Zodiac evidence or DNA is discovered in an attic or some other source.
As an amateur Zodiac sleuth, I found myself fairly disappointed with the Paul Doerr lead, but I do hope that more information eventually comes to light. Kobek’s sequel provides just enough detail to arouse suspicion and pique my interest, but not enough to convince me that Doerr was definitively, or even likely, the Zodiac. I commend Kobek for his obvious effort, but ultimately, I was not fully convinced.
April 8, 2022
Again with the editorial problems. Right out of the gate there were three editorial mistakes on the first page. So that was distracting. But I’ll look past that. Now to the meat of the book. Kobek seeks to solve the identity of Zodiac through of all things: fanzines and all the tiresome mimeographed horror they represent. The minutiae is thick and intense and pretty monotonous and possibly a bit boring. All that being said, Kobek might’ve actually solved the puzzle with tons of unflattering detective work. Does it make for a phenomenal book though? Not really. A good book, yes. But just a smidge less entertaining than the first.
September 24, 2022
How To Find Zodiac is a book about Jarett Kobek, a man who hates the internet and thinks he has discovered the identity of the Zodiac killer through the use of Google searches. It is written in the third person perspective by an author called Jarett Kobek.
Writing about yourself in third person is a technique that while novel at first, can quickly outwear its welcome and become pretentious in the eyes of the reader. Naturally, The Kid thinks the best way of explaining this is to copy the style of Kobek’s book for his review.
Trying to copy or mimic an author’s voice for a book review is just about the laziest and most obnoxious thing a book reviewer can do. It sits on the bottom level of hell alongside interspacing your review with gifs from pop culture. This makes it perfect for the task at hand.
Like How To Find Zodiac, you will either find this use of third person technique to be slightly clever or incredibly annoying. In the case of this review, it is most likely to be the latter. Kobek is a very talented writer who can almost pull it off. The Kid is not a talented writer and cannot pull it off.
#
Before The Kid continues, he wishes to state several things.
These comments are not meant to imply that Kobek should have avoided the third person perspective. As stated above, Kobek is a talented writer and the use of third person immediately distinguishes the work from many published pieces of true crime.
That said, while Kobek is a talented writer, the use of third person sometimes presented two problems to The Kid when reading this book.
The first problem was that Kobek’s name has several similarities with the individual he names as his suspect. Kobek has five letters in it. Doerr has five letters in it. Both have O for the second letter. There’s a great deal of names and dates in the book, sometimes requiring effort to keep track of it all. In this scenario, it was easy for The Kid, troubled by ADHD he was, to lose track of who was who when skimming to cross reference various pieces of information. Both names occupy the same amount of space in terms of typesetting.
Sometimes for brief moments, Doerr became Kobek and Kobek became Doerr.
The second problem for The Kid was the third person perspective put an additional filter between him and the material. Rather than being sat in the room with Kobek while he explained his research, it felt more like being stood outside looking in at him through the window. If he listened he would hear what Kobek was saying, but at times it was an unwelcome barrier.
#
Like Motor Spirit, the preceding book by Kobek, How To Find Zodiac is independently published. Having finished reading HTFZ, The Kid now understands why.
HTFZ is a 300 page look at a man named Doerr who Kobek postulates was the Zodiac by means of Google searches and decades of digitalised fanzines going back to the 1960s. This is not The Kid being snarky, this is simply describing the means undertaken to research and source the material in the book.
This also means that HTFZ is potentially a 300 page print-on-demand lawsuit waiting to happen. The Kid is not familiar with the American legal system. It’s possible that any lawsuit brought against Kobek and his tiny publishing house would fail. But The Kid can’t help but feel that Doerr’s surviving family would be troubled to find a relative indicted for being the Zodiac on the basis of archived newsletters, merited or not.
#
That aside, the facet of Doerr presented in the book, which we know only through archived fanzines and letters, is without a doubt interesting and often times sinister. The one problem is that like most Zodiac suspects, everything is entirely circumstantial. Kobek would not be the first to put forward a suspect on the basis of circumstance alone, and when presented in the right fashion, it’s easy to make it seem damning.
The Kid does, however, believe Kobek has put forward a suspect as compelling as any in recent years. The timings of events, the contents of letters, a whole host of other coincidences, are often uncanny.
The Kid remains agnostic about suspects and doesn’t believe one over the other. He doesn’t necessarily believe the individual he chooses to call Kobek Doerr is the Zodiac, but if Kobek Doerr was ever identified by police as the Zodiac, he also would not be surprised from the basis of Kobek’s book.
Perhaps the thing The Kid found most interesting about Kobek Doerr is the voice in the letters. The contents of them. ALA, put forward in Graysmith’s Zodiac, is probably the most well-known Zodiac Suspect, but while ALA was a depraved and dangerous paedophile, The Kid could never quite square one aspect of it. ALA simply seemed too pathetic. In The Kid’s head, ALA would be a man too prone towards self-pity to fit his idea of the Zodiac.
#
The Kid needs to be mindful of what he writes regarding Kobek’s suspect. There are aspects of Doerr’s letters that are quite threatening, but equally so, it does not mean he is the Zodiac. The Kid does not want to add to the pile on of a deceased man or cause hardship to those related to him.
The nature of true crime troubles The Kid. He is as complicit as anybody else in partaking in it. Though he has done his best to try and navigate the nature of it ethically, he accepts that he has failed.
Rather than offer pointless speculation as to the merit of Kobek’s claims, The Kid wishes to comment on one other thing.
HTFZ is as much a constructed portrait of a man as it is an attempt at identifying a serial killer. The Kid can’t help but feel that if Kobek Doerr were a young man today, he would be found posting on Reddit.
If you looked at Kobek Doerr’s profile, you’d find him in subreddits about guns, science fiction and fantasy. He really, really likes guns. His comments would contain unsolicited facts and instructions on how to do things that nobody had ever asked for.
You’d finding him posting in search of women and polyamorous partners, his posts downvoted and left without response. Kobek Doerr has the whiff of a man who wants to hook up with hot young women, but lacks the social grace to pull it off. He’s married with children, but he lacks the awareness to understand that there’s something in his writings that sets off the creeper alarm and scares women away.
He aspires to living off the grid as an independent survivalist with his collection of polyamorous women, but he’s incapable of making it happen. He’s as much a fantasist as a man of action.
Kobek Doerr sits on the periphery of society, one foot outside normal, one foot inside. He’s a guy that doesn’t quite get society. There’s just something off about him.
In that respect, Kobek Doerr is completely normal. There are thousands and thousands of people like him on Reddit. The Kid sees these individuals all the time. None of them are Zodiac, and none of them are serial killers. Somebody could make a valid argument that The Kid shares his own similarities with some of them.
#
But if all these things seem true of Kobek Doerr, then it must be remembered that Kobek Doerr is not Real Doerr. Kobek Doerr is a construct formed from decades of archived fanzines and letters. It offers us a lens to see only part of Real Doerr. Without further information, it’s impossible for The Kid to contextualise Real Doerr.
#
Kobek’s investigation of Doerr doesn’t so much end as it does fade out. Much of his research is composed of Doerr’s fanzines and letters, and when Kobek starts running out of those, the narrative begins to lose steam. Eventually all available material is exhausted. There is nowhere left to go. No real finale. All we are left with is Kobek’s attempt at building a picture. There is no smoking gun.
In some respects, it seems like Motor Spirit was the book Kobek really wanted to write, and HTFZ is simply a book-sized epilogue to it.
#
There is one final aspect The Kid needs to touch upon in his review. Kobek himself. Goodreads guidelines state that reviews should not be about the author, but in the case of Kobek, he is as much as a character in this book as Doerr.
Not only does he write about himself in the third person as a character, but he also references his previous writings in parts of the text.
Kobek besides being a skilled writer, is also an interesting guy that The Kid can’t quite figure out. Kobek is a guy that writes a book about hating the internet, but uses it as the foundation of his research for this book. He hates Amazon and Goodreads reviews, but he quotes them on the back covers of his books. His publishing website features pictures of negative user reviews.
Hating the internet should not preclude using it, and using it should not preclude hating it. But Kobek, particularly in Motor Spirit, is prone to a cynicism so sharp it becomes nihilism spelt with a C. At times he seems to want to assume a position of moral authority over the reader.
The Kid thinks Kobek’s heart is in the right place. He’s not trying to say Kobek is a bad guy. But The Kid thinks Kobek sometimes gets carried away with his burning cynicism. In Motor Spirit, he’s too busy burning that Ann Jiminez gets reduced to being a prop. Poor Ann is only ever mentioned in the context of being fat, of being turned out, of being a motor spirit gang bang. Even in the Goodreads description, she exists only as an unnamed Haight Street gang bang.
The Kid thinks a little bit more compassion would go a long way to balancing things out.
#
For various reasons, The Kid is mostly fed up with true crime these days and chooses to avoid it. But his passing interest in true crime was originally sparked by Fincher’s Zodiac film, and if he is to give up true crime, then Kobek’s Zodiac books are a fitting note to end it on.
Although The Kid has his criticisms of Kobek’s work and does not think they are perfect, they are well written and he respects the research done. Kobek could be accused of many things, but sloppiness is not one of them.
The Kid is of the opinion that the Zodiac case will likely never be conclusively solved. But if it is, and he one day opens the newspaper to see that Kobek’s research had something to do with it, he would tip his hat to the author.
Finally, The Kid wishes to apologise for the most obnoxious and pretentious thing he has ever written on the internet.
Writing about yourself in third person is a technique that while novel at first, can quickly outwear its welcome and become pretentious in the eyes of the reader. Naturally, The Kid thinks the best way of explaining this is to copy the style of Kobek’s book for his review.
Trying to copy or mimic an author’s voice for a book review is just about the laziest and most obnoxious thing a book reviewer can do. It sits on the bottom level of hell alongside interspacing your review with gifs from pop culture. This makes it perfect for the task at hand.
Like How To Find Zodiac, you will either find this use of third person technique to be slightly clever or incredibly annoying. In the case of this review, it is most likely to be the latter. Kobek is a very talented writer who can almost pull it off. The Kid is not a talented writer and cannot pull it off.
#
Before The Kid continues, he wishes to state several things.
These comments are not meant to imply that Kobek should have avoided the third person perspective. As stated above, Kobek is a talented writer and the use of third person immediately distinguishes the work from many published pieces of true crime.
That said, while Kobek is a talented writer, the use of third person sometimes presented two problems to The Kid when reading this book.
The first problem was that Kobek’s name has several similarities with the individual he names as his suspect. Kobek has five letters in it. Doerr has five letters in it. Both have O for the second letter. There’s a great deal of names and dates in the book, sometimes requiring effort to keep track of it all. In this scenario, it was easy for The Kid, troubled by ADHD he was, to lose track of who was who when skimming to cross reference various pieces of information. Both names occupy the same amount of space in terms of typesetting.
Sometimes for brief moments, Doerr became Kobek and Kobek became Doerr.
The second problem for The Kid was the third person perspective put an additional filter between him and the material. Rather than being sat in the room with Kobek while he explained his research, it felt more like being stood outside looking in at him through the window. If he listened he would hear what Kobek was saying, but at times it was an unwelcome barrier.
#
Like Motor Spirit, the preceding book by Kobek, How To Find Zodiac is independently published. Having finished reading HTFZ, The Kid now understands why.
HTFZ is a 300 page look at a man named Doerr who Kobek postulates was the Zodiac by means of Google searches and decades of digitalised fanzines going back to the 1960s. This is not The Kid being snarky, this is simply describing the means undertaken to research and source the material in the book.
This also means that HTFZ is potentially a 300 page print-on-demand lawsuit waiting to happen. The Kid is not familiar with the American legal system. It’s possible that any lawsuit brought against Kobek and his tiny publishing house would fail. But The Kid can’t help but feel that Doerr’s surviving family would be troubled to find a relative indicted for being the Zodiac on the basis of archived newsletters, merited or not.
#
That aside, the facet of Doerr presented in the book, which we know only through archived fanzines and letters, is without a doubt interesting and often times sinister. The one problem is that like most Zodiac suspects, everything is entirely circumstantial. Kobek would not be the first to put forward a suspect on the basis of circumstance alone, and when presented in the right fashion, it’s easy to make it seem damning.
The Kid does, however, believe Kobek has put forward a suspect as compelling as any in recent years. The timings of events, the contents of letters, a whole host of other coincidences, are often uncanny.
The Kid remains agnostic about suspects and doesn’t believe one over the other. He doesn’t necessarily believe the individual he chooses to call Kobek Doerr is the Zodiac, but if Kobek Doerr was ever identified by police as the Zodiac, he also would not be surprised from the basis of Kobek’s book.
Perhaps the thing The Kid found most interesting about Kobek Doerr is the voice in the letters. The contents of them. ALA, put forward in Graysmith’s Zodiac, is probably the most well-known Zodiac Suspect, but while ALA was a depraved and dangerous paedophile, The Kid could never quite square one aspect of it. ALA simply seemed too pathetic. In The Kid’s head, ALA would be a man too prone towards self-pity to fit his idea of the Zodiac.
#
The Kid needs to be mindful of what he writes regarding Kobek’s suspect. There are aspects of Doerr’s letters that are quite threatening, but equally so, it does not mean he is the Zodiac. The Kid does not want to add to the pile on of a deceased man or cause hardship to those related to him.
The nature of true crime troubles The Kid. He is as complicit as anybody else in partaking in it. Though he has done his best to try and navigate the nature of it ethically, he accepts that he has failed.
Rather than offer pointless speculation as to the merit of Kobek’s claims, The Kid wishes to comment on one other thing.
HTFZ is as much a constructed portrait of a man as it is an attempt at identifying a serial killer. The Kid can’t help but feel that if Kobek Doerr were a young man today, he would be found posting on Reddit.
If you looked at Kobek Doerr’s profile, you’d find him in subreddits about guns, science fiction and fantasy. He really, really likes guns. His comments would contain unsolicited facts and instructions on how to do things that nobody had ever asked for.
You’d finding him posting in search of women and polyamorous partners, his posts downvoted and left without response. Kobek Doerr has the whiff of a man who wants to hook up with hot young women, but lacks the social grace to pull it off. He’s married with children, but he lacks the awareness to understand that there’s something in his writings that sets off the creeper alarm and scares women away.
He aspires to living off the grid as an independent survivalist with his collection of polyamorous women, but he’s incapable of making it happen. He’s as much a fantasist as a man of action.
Kobek Doerr sits on the periphery of society, one foot outside normal, one foot inside. He’s a guy that doesn’t quite get society. There’s just something off about him.
In that respect, Kobek Doerr is completely normal. There are thousands and thousands of people like him on Reddit. The Kid sees these individuals all the time. None of them are Zodiac, and none of them are serial killers. Somebody could make a valid argument that The Kid shares his own similarities with some of them.
#
But if all these things seem true of Kobek Doerr, then it must be remembered that Kobek Doerr is not Real Doerr. Kobek Doerr is a construct formed from decades of archived fanzines and letters. It offers us a lens to see only part of Real Doerr. Without further information, it’s impossible for The Kid to contextualise Real Doerr.
#
Kobek’s investigation of Doerr doesn’t so much end as it does fade out. Much of his research is composed of Doerr’s fanzines and letters, and when Kobek starts running out of those, the narrative begins to lose steam. Eventually all available material is exhausted. There is nowhere left to go. No real finale. All we are left with is Kobek’s attempt at building a picture. There is no smoking gun.
In some respects, it seems like Motor Spirit was the book Kobek really wanted to write, and HTFZ is simply a book-sized epilogue to it.
#
There is one final aspect The Kid needs to touch upon in his review. Kobek himself. Goodreads guidelines state that reviews should not be about the author, but in the case of Kobek, he is as much as a character in this book as Doerr.
Not only does he write about himself in the third person as a character, but he also references his previous writings in parts of the text.
Kobek besides being a skilled writer, is also an interesting guy that The Kid can’t quite figure out. Kobek is a guy that writes a book about hating the internet, but uses it as the foundation of his research for this book. He hates Amazon and Goodreads reviews, but he quotes them on the back covers of his books. His publishing website features pictures of negative user reviews.
Hating the internet should not preclude using it, and using it should not preclude hating it. But Kobek, particularly in Motor Spirit, is prone to a cynicism so sharp it becomes nihilism spelt with a C. At times he seems to want to assume a position of moral authority over the reader.
The Kid thinks Kobek’s heart is in the right place. He’s not trying to say Kobek is a bad guy. But The Kid thinks Kobek sometimes gets carried away with his burning cynicism. In Motor Spirit, he’s too busy burning that Ann Jiminez gets reduced to being a prop. Poor Ann is only ever mentioned in the context of being fat, of being turned out, of being a motor spirit gang bang. Even in the Goodreads description, she exists only as an unnamed Haight Street gang bang.
The Kid thinks a little bit more compassion would go a long way to balancing things out.
#
For various reasons, The Kid is mostly fed up with true crime these days and chooses to avoid it. But his passing interest in true crime was originally sparked by Fincher’s Zodiac film, and if he is to give up true crime, then Kobek’s Zodiac books are a fitting note to end it on.
Although The Kid has his criticisms of Kobek’s work and does not think they are perfect, they are well written and he respects the research done. Kobek could be accused of many things, but sloppiness is not one of them.
The Kid is of the opinion that the Zodiac case will likely never be conclusively solved. But if it is, and he one day opens the newspaper to see that Kobek’s research had something to do with it, he would tip his hat to the author.
Finally, The Kid wishes to apologise for the most obnoxious and pretentious thing he has ever written on the internet.
November 19, 2025
This was one compelling book! The identity of the Zodiac killer, much like that of Jack the Ripper, has confounded generations of professional and armchair sleuths. It is true, the author does handicap himself by zeroing in on one man (now deceased, so we'll never know entirely for sure), but the sheer meticulousness of the case he makes--the research obsessive to a degree that might concern medical professionals--is hard to refute. This is one true crime readers won't want to miss.
July 19, 2022
To begin with, and in no uncertain terms, Kobek makes one of the all time great arguments for the possible identity of Zodiac. With that said, I still would be hesitant to say with certainty that Paul Doerr is Zodiac.
The big problem with this book is that Kobek has spent an entire book before this point explaining how investigators of Zodiac make large leaps to fit their theories. There are several moments of that here as well, the entire premise is based upon a leap of faith.
What I found curious in this book was that the longer it went, the less convinced I became. The closing chapters especially had moments where I audibly said “oh, I don’t know.” As it seems Kobek becomes more desperate as the book goes along to convince you.
“No really, I swear dude.”
He at the same time wants Mageau’s testimony to be questionable, but also believable enough to fit his timeline for how Doerr could’ve pulled off the attack. The police sketch of Zodiac is an aberration, with details added with creative license, but at the same time can be shaped and formed just enough to fit an (alleged) picture of Doerr. I have to snort at the acrobatics Kobek is pulling off at this part. The Zodiac’s cipher sort of kind of if you squint real hard is similar to a Greek cipher Doerr published once in an issue of a fanzine.
Whether or not you believe the theory Kobek puts forward is one thing, but examining the book on its own merits, how does it hold up?
I would say this book is about half as well done as Motor Spirits. Kobek has an acidic humor that keeps you engaged, and the deep well of research he’s pulling from is impressive, but he can only keep the boredom at bay for so long. No lie, I tore through the first hundred pages, and then hit a lag where we got caught up in the origin of the Libertarian party and the publication history of fanzines in the San Fransisco Bay Area and I kind of longed for death.
That’s not entirely Kobek’s fault, there’s only so many ways one can keep you interested with the incredibly depressing history of lonely white men in the decade of free love, but it nevertheless makes this a far less pleasurable experience than Motor Spirits.
In it, though, Kobek highlights the futility of obsession, the sad reality of a man who always believed he’d be more important than he actually was. Whether Doerr was Zodiac or not, his life seemed to be a product of an unfair expectation he felt since he was little. He talked a mad game, about his boat, his many wives, his search for a hedonistic lifestyle, but in reality he was what many end up being. An anonymous man living in a loveless marriage working at a dead end job. One thing is certain, whoever Zodiac was, he probably fit that description perfectly.
I’d definitely recommend it especially if you’ve already read the other book, and wouldn’t blame you if he was able to convince you of his suspect. I’ve often said I’ve yet to hear a good theory about Zodiac, but few are better than this one.
The big problem with this book is that Kobek has spent an entire book before this point explaining how investigators of Zodiac make large leaps to fit their theories. There are several moments of that here as well, the entire premise is based upon a leap of faith.
What I found curious in this book was that the longer it went, the less convinced I became. The closing chapters especially had moments where I audibly said “oh, I don’t know.” As it seems Kobek becomes more desperate as the book goes along to convince you.
“No really, I swear dude.”
He at the same time wants Mageau’s testimony to be questionable, but also believable enough to fit his timeline for how Doerr could’ve pulled off the attack. The police sketch of Zodiac is an aberration, with details added with creative license, but at the same time can be shaped and formed just enough to fit an (alleged) picture of Doerr. I have to snort at the acrobatics Kobek is pulling off at this part. The Zodiac’s cipher sort of kind of if you squint real hard is similar to a Greek cipher Doerr published once in an issue of a fanzine.
Whether or not you believe the theory Kobek puts forward is one thing, but examining the book on its own merits, how does it hold up?
I would say this book is about half as well done as Motor Spirits. Kobek has an acidic humor that keeps you engaged, and the deep well of research he’s pulling from is impressive, but he can only keep the boredom at bay for so long. No lie, I tore through the first hundred pages, and then hit a lag where we got caught up in the origin of the Libertarian party and the publication history of fanzines in the San Fransisco Bay Area and I kind of longed for death.
That’s not entirely Kobek’s fault, there’s only so many ways one can keep you interested with the incredibly depressing history of lonely white men in the decade of free love, but it nevertheless makes this a far less pleasurable experience than Motor Spirits.
In it, though, Kobek highlights the futility of obsession, the sad reality of a man who always believed he’d be more important than he actually was. Whether Doerr was Zodiac or not, his life seemed to be a product of an unfair expectation he felt since he was little. He talked a mad game, about his boat, his many wives, his search for a hedonistic lifestyle, but in reality he was what many end up being. An anonymous man living in a loveless marriage working at a dead end job. One thing is certain, whoever Zodiac was, he probably fit that description perfectly.
I’d definitely recommend it especially if you’ve already read the other book, and wouldn’t blame you if he was able to convince you of his suspect. I’ve often said I’ve yet to hear a good theory about Zodiac, but few are better than this one.
May 11, 2024
Kobek wrote a book. The book read like the ramblings of a madman. Christie read the book, enjoyed it, but wasn’t sure if he’d gotten it 100% or fudged some of the facts a bit. Kobek insinuated his path was to find evidence proving Doerr wasn’t the Zodiac, and states that because he couldn’t find anything proving that, he must be suspect. Christie thinks because he didn’t find anything explicitly proving it, there’s still a reasonable doubt.
Christie thinks Kobek is a good writer, in the style of Vonnegut or what she imagines Hunter S Thompson writes like (she doesn’t know and hasn’t read any of HST’s books). She’d like to drink a beer with Kobek, because he seems very cool. Christie would also like to write a book like this herself one day, or at least have the funds to seemingly go on a wild goose chase.
Christie is glad she read this book, if only because she admires Kobek and likes his style.
Christie thinks Kobek is a good writer, in the style of Vonnegut or what she imagines Hunter S Thompson writes like (she doesn’t know and hasn’t read any of HST’s books). She’d like to drink a beer with Kobek, because he seems very cool. Christie would also like to write a book like this herself one day, or at least have the funds to seemingly go on a wild goose chase.
Christie is glad she read this book, if only because she admires Kobek and likes his style.
May 30, 2022
Addressing the elephant in the garage. Kobek makes a great assessment of his findings, and by doing so, has found a credible suspect. Nevertheless, his suspect is based on an assumption he made, and while there's evidence to support his assumption, it's still an assumption. You could say he was highlighting 'The Zodiac' in this book, but if he has, it's unwillingly--on BEE'S podcast, he seems sincere. Still, his suspect is more plausible than most theories.
With that out of the way, let's talk about the book.
In Doer, Kobek has found a vessel to highlight a majority of people's unhealthy Outlook on life, to the a potential suspect for Zodiac. A man who craved recognition, believed communist (today thats just left or woke) need exterminating, and struggles to distinguish reality from fiction (topic Kobek has delved in before). The stark comparison with Doer, to many crazed gunman is distressing; how Doer operated within the media of his times, letter--which in his case is no different from a comment.
At one point, Kobek sees an earlier version of himself, a young writer just wanting to be heard, in Doer.
All these elements took me by surprise, and with Kobeks wit in full force, made me enjoy this book more that I thought.
Kobek seems more freeing in his execution, occasionally digressing and having fun--like previous works. His choice to write in third gives it a story feel, cheap, but it works.
How To Find Zodiac displays a precursor to the Lovecraftian madness that media and social media can do to someone desperate for infamy. We all have a little piece of Doer in ourselves, just some more than others.
With that out of the way, let's talk about the book.
In Doer, Kobek has found a vessel to highlight a majority of people's unhealthy Outlook on life, to the a potential suspect for Zodiac. A man who craved recognition, believed communist (today thats just left or woke) need exterminating, and struggles to distinguish reality from fiction (topic Kobek has delved in before). The stark comparison with Doer, to many crazed gunman is distressing; how Doer operated within the media of his times, letter--which in his case is no different from a comment.
At one point, Kobek sees an earlier version of himself, a young writer just wanting to be heard, in Doer.
All these elements took me by surprise, and with Kobeks wit in full force, made me enjoy this book more that I thought.
Kobek seems more freeing in his execution, occasionally digressing and having fun--like previous works. His choice to write in third gives it a story feel, cheap, but it works.
How To Find Zodiac displays a precursor to the Lovecraftian madness that media and social media can do to someone desperate for infamy. We all have a little piece of Doer in ourselves, just some more than others.
December 25, 2025
Nine of the one Zodiac killer have been identified. (https://allthatsinteresting.com/who-w...) Another dead white man gets taken on the Zodiac perp walk.
The ninth and most recent Zodiac is Paul Doerr as described in this self-published 2022 book.
The author Kobek enters the Zodiac labyrinth when he learns that in 2013 a researcher sourced the text the purported Zodiac wrote on a 1970 Halloween card he mailed to a newspaper. “By FiRE,” “By GUN,” “By KNiFE” [The “N” should be mirrored.], “By ROPE” had appeared on the cover of a 1952 Western comic book. From this Kobek speculates that the Zodiac was a comic book fan so he Googles “fanzines" [magazines for fans] and “Vallejo,” the post mark on the Halloween card. What comes back is a PDF of a science fiction, not a Western comic book, fanzine with a Vallejo subscriber named Paul Doerr who died in 2007. (Kobek briefly returns to the subject of Doerr and comic books on page 205.) The remainder of the 299 page book vacuums up every readily available scrap of published Doerr correspondence without getting any closer to certainty that Doerr was the Zodiac.
For me Kobek’s most persuasive points were these:
Doerr ran a classified ad that he had some guns for sale or trade. Kobek thinks that’s a felony. I think there’s a difference between placing a gun ad and actually selling and shipping a gun through the mail. Reminder: All serial killers are felons but not all felons are serial killers.
“Kobek [He writes about himself in the third person.] did not believe in handwriting analysis, felt that the principal point of the pseudoscience was putting poor people in prison.”(p.89) Nevertheless he proceeds to examine the writing of the two men and conclude they are similar. Looking at the included writing specimens I don’t see anything remarkable. Nothing jumps out. There is no ah-ha moment. Throughout the book Kobek repeats a “I checked myself for confirmation bias” refrain that the visual evidence, to my lying eyes, does not confirm.
Kobek comes up with three 1968 photos of Doerr (Doerr’s daughter confirmed they are of him. https://lamag.com/news/zodiac-killer-...) and compares them to two 1969 police sketches of the Zodiac. I don’t see a resemblance. Kobek sees an unusually large chin in both. What the photos and the sketches do share in common is the absence of an unusually large chin.
Kobek digs up a Google Street View of Doerr’s home at 225 E Utah Street, Fairfield, California (He only worked in Vallejo.) from October 2007 (He had died August 2nd.) and spots a 1967 Ford Fairlane in the driveway. This may or may not be the “compact” a traumatized and anesthetized survivor said he may or may not have seen the Zodiac drive off in. (Kobek does touch on the unreliability of eyewitness testimony here.)
In one of the fanzines Doerr wrote that he had had a personal situation a few years earlier which he took care of and the people concerned aren’t around anymore. Kobek takes this as a confession of murder. In early 1974 a prominent libertarian fanzine contributor named Tom Marshall and his lady friend disappeared or dropped out without a trace. I think he had advocated an off the grid, back to nature, self-sufficient life style and probably lived rent free on remote public land flying below the IRS and Social Security radar. Solving this would be particularly difficult but Kobek seems to speculate that shortly before his disappearance Marshall queried Doerr about his self-incriminatory statement. Kobek doesn’t mention confirmation bias in this instance. If Marshall had made the accusation I would think it would be fairly easy for Doerr to walk back: “I meant ... I had words with them and ... they stay out of my way now ... they make themselves scarce when they see me coming ... we see eye to eye now ... we resolved things, the issues between us went away.” And so on. A lot easier than finding two people who don’t want to be found and making them disappear for good.
In the Los Angeles Magazine article which was arranged after the book’s publication, Doerr’s seventy-three year old daughter recounts that he gave her sixteen year old self a severe beating after he found out she was strung out on heroin. She and Kobek speculate that this might have happened the night of one of the killings. In the book Kobek hypothesizes a more generalized scenario of sexual frustration during the Summer of Love and a life of quiet desperation in which Doerr, too old to be a baby boomer, did a slow burn before flipping out and killing indiscriminately. No evidence of a criminal record or treatment or hospitalization for mental illness is presented.
To me Doerr presents as an anodyne Walter Mitty and Renaissance man; even Kobek says several times he was an autodidact and tells the daughter he became fond of him over the course of his research. Doerr’s eccentricities such as his right wing political beliefs are used against him here in much the same way the friendless and unmarried women in early 18th century Scotland and Salem, Massachusetts wound up before the assizes. Kobek took a chronological approach and rather late in the book he realizes that Doerr recycled a lot of his writing through different fanzines as the decades went by. There were also two long fallow stretches that he seems to feel are significant but doesn’t attempt to explicate. I came away with the realization there were more facets to this man, as with anyone, than just what they write.
You may have seen the Zodiac message which says “My name is -" followed by thirteen letters and symbols. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...
Cryptologists point out that a cipher that short is not credibly solvable because anything can be made to fit; “Alfred E Newman” fits. Kobek says it reminds him of a thirteen letter palindrome in ancient Greek from Amulets and Talismans (1930) by E. A. W. Budge. He includes a twenty-two page appendix explaining how the palindrome decodes the “name”-too long and too abstruse for me to attempt to read but scanning I did not find a solution,, i.e., Zodiac’s name, just a claim that it worked.
Initially I found the writing style here persuasive but gradually my enthusiasm wore out; the apparent objectivity of the third person narrator, persistent claims that confirmation bias had been accounted for, the certitude of profanity, even the professed disinterest and reluctance of an intellectual sophisticate to begin and continue to write a true crime book.
Rather coincidentally when I picked up this book and googled the author what popped up was only five days old and showed that he and a Richard Byrne had solved a code that the CIA has been publicly dangling for years as a publicity stunt. They didn’t solve it in the usual way but found the key to the code while rummaging around in the Smithsonian Institute’s archive.
The ninth and most recent Zodiac is Paul Doerr as described in this self-published 2022 book.
The author Kobek enters the Zodiac labyrinth when he learns that in 2013 a researcher sourced the text the purported Zodiac wrote on a 1970 Halloween card he mailed to a newspaper. “By FiRE,” “By GUN,” “By KNiFE” [The “N” should be mirrored.], “By ROPE” had appeared on the cover of a 1952 Western comic book. From this Kobek speculates that the Zodiac was a comic book fan so he Googles “fanzines" [magazines for fans] and “Vallejo,” the post mark on the Halloween card. What comes back is a PDF of a science fiction, not a Western comic book, fanzine with a Vallejo subscriber named Paul Doerr who died in 2007. (Kobek briefly returns to the subject of Doerr and comic books on page 205.) The remainder of the 299 page book vacuums up every readily available scrap of published Doerr correspondence without getting any closer to certainty that Doerr was the Zodiac.
For me Kobek’s most persuasive points were these:
Doerr ran a classified ad that he had some guns for sale or trade. Kobek thinks that’s a felony. I think there’s a difference between placing a gun ad and actually selling and shipping a gun through the mail. Reminder: All serial killers are felons but not all felons are serial killers.
“Kobek [He writes about himself in the third person.] did not believe in handwriting analysis, felt that the principal point of the pseudoscience was putting poor people in prison.”(p.89) Nevertheless he proceeds to examine the writing of the two men and conclude they are similar. Looking at the included writing specimens I don’t see anything remarkable. Nothing jumps out. There is no ah-ha moment. Throughout the book Kobek repeats a “I checked myself for confirmation bias” refrain that the visual evidence, to my lying eyes, does not confirm.
Kobek comes up with three 1968 photos of Doerr (Doerr’s daughter confirmed they are of him. https://lamag.com/news/zodiac-killer-...) and compares them to two 1969 police sketches of the Zodiac. I don’t see a resemblance. Kobek sees an unusually large chin in both. What the photos and the sketches do share in common is the absence of an unusually large chin.
Kobek digs up a Google Street View of Doerr’s home at 225 E Utah Street, Fairfield, California (He only worked in Vallejo.) from October 2007 (He had died August 2nd.) and spots a 1967 Ford Fairlane in the driveway. This may or may not be the “compact” a traumatized and anesthetized survivor said he may or may not have seen the Zodiac drive off in. (Kobek does touch on the unreliability of eyewitness testimony here.)
In one of the fanzines Doerr wrote that he had had a personal situation a few years earlier which he took care of and the people concerned aren’t around anymore. Kobek takes this as a confession of murder. In early 1974 a prominent libertarian fanzine contributor named Tom Marshall and his lady friend disappeared or dropped out without a trace. I think he had advocated an off the grid, back to nature, self-sufficient life style and probably lived rent free on remote public land flying below the IRS and Social Security radar. Solving this would be particularly difficult but Kobek seems to speculate that shortly before his disappearance Marshall queried Doerr about his self-incriminatory statement. Kobek doesn’t mention confirmation bias in this instance. If Marshall had made the accusation I would think it would be fairly easy for Doerr to walk back: “I meant ... I had words with them and ... they stay out of my way now ... they make themselves scarce when they see me coming ... we see eye to eye now ... we resolved things, the issues between us went away.” And so on. A lot easier than finding two people who don’t want to be found and making them disappear for good.
In the Los Angeles Magazine article which was arranged after the book’s publication, Doerr’s seventy-three year old daughter recounts that he gave her sixteen year old self a severe beating after he found out she was strung out on heroin. She and Kobek speculate that this might have happened the night of one of the killings. In the book Kobek hypothesizes a more generalized scenario of sexual frustration during the Summer of Love and a life of quiet desperation in which Doerr, too old to be a baby boomer, did a slow burn before flipping out and killing indiscriminately. No evidence of a criminal record or treatment or hospitalization for mental illness is presented.
To me Doerr presents as an anodyne Walter Mitty and Renaissance man; even Kobek says several times he was an autodidact and tells the daughter he became fond of him over the course of his research. Doerr’s eccentricities such as his right wing political beliefs are used against him here in much the same way the friendless and unmarried women in early 18th century Scotland and Salem, Massachusetts wound up before the assizes. Kobek took a chronological approach and rather late in the book he realizes that Doerr recycled a lot of his writing through different fanzines as the decades went by. There were also two long fallow stretches that he seems to feel are significant but doesn’t attempt to explicate. I came away with the realization there were more facets to this man, as with anyone, than just what they write.
You may have seen the Zodiac message which says “My name is -" followed by thirteen letters and symbols. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...
Cryptologists point out that a cipher that short is not credibly solvable because anything can be made to fit; “Alfred E Newman” fits. Kobek says it reminds him of a thirteen letter palindrome in ancient Greek from Amulets and Talismans (1930) by E. A. W. Budge. He includes a twenty-two page appendix explaining how the palindrome decodes the “name”-too long and too abstruse for me to attempt to read but scanning I did not find a solution,, i.e., Zodiac’s name, just a claim that it worked.
Initially I found the writing style here persuasive but gradually my enthusiasm wore out; the apparent objectivity of the third person narrator, persistent claims that confirmation bias had been accounted for, the certitude of profanity, even the professed disinterest and reluctance of an intellectual sophisticate to begin and continue to write a true crime book.
Rather coincidentally when I picked up this book and googled the author what popped up was only five days old and showed that he and a Richard Byrne had solved a code that the CIA has been publicly dangling for years as a publicity stunt. They didn’t solve it in the usual way but found the key to the code while rummaging around in the Smithsonian Institute’s archive.
July 13, 2022
definitely benefits from having read Motor Spirit first, it’s like a long epilogue to MS really. i can’t really tell what kind of game he’s playing with this, there’s a warning on the cover asking if the reader can “find the flaws in the hunting method”, there’s the writing in third person, the constant references to confirmation bias etc.
but most of the material inside is meticulous, really a fantastic feat of research and logical deduction. i mean it’s all circumstantial evidence but it’s pretty convincing as a whole. there are a couple of dubious logical leaps but a few moments that made me go “oh, shit”. i’m only somewhat interested in the “who is zodiac” question but books like this where you’re along for the ride with the author as he goes deeper and deeper into a thesis (like CHAOS) are catnip to me. and kobek is both a smart writer who avoids the kinda self-seriousness or self-regard of most true crime writers and a really great analytic mind. like damn this guy is smart.
and the general “scene” this stuff covers is really interesting to me. the parts of the 60s people don’t remember. there aren’t many hippies in this portrayal of the 60s bay area but lots of far right militias, weird collectors, zine writers, medieval reenactors, early science fiction and fantasy fans etc etc. vallejo instead of haight-ashbury. tons of this book is just excerpts from and explanations of the 60s fanzine scene (actually all the mail stuff in this really puts crying of lot 49 into a different perspective). before the internet you had to be a true freak to find other freaks. and most of that stuff as a way of relating to the world is lost to time now. so just as a historical record of the weirdo network it’s valuable.
but most of the material inside is meticulous, really a fantastic feat of research and logical deduction. i mean it’s all circumstantial evidence but it’s pretty convincing as a whole. there are a couple of dubious logical leaps but a few moments that made me go “oh, shit”. i’m only somewhat interested in the “who is zodiac” question but books like this where you’re along for the ride with the author as he goes deeper and deeper into a thesis (like CHAOS) are catnip to me. and kobek is both a smart writer who avoids the kinda self-seriousness or self-regard of most true crime writers and a really great analytic mind. like damn this guy is smart.
and the general “scene” this stuff covers is really interesting to me. the parts of the 60s people don’t remember. there aren’t many hippies in this portrayal of the 60s bay area but lots of far right militias, weird collectors, zine writers, medieval reenactors, early science fiction and fantasy fans etc etc. vallejo instead of haight-ashbury. tons of this book is just excerpts from and explanations of the 60s fanzine scene (actually all the mail stuff in this really puts crying of lot 49 into a different perspective). before the internet you had to be a true freak to find other freaks. and most of that stuff as a way of relating to the world is lost to time now. so just as a historical record of the weirdo network it’s valuable.
March 23, 2024
This is a hard one to rate because the detective work is top notch and the writing...isn't.
The author took two big swings, stylistically speaking, and neither one pays off. The first is that though he centers himself, talking through not just conclusions and evidence, but thought processes, opinions, and dead-ends, he chose to tell the story in the third person.
This is a precious affectation that adds precisely nothing to the book. Although from time to time, when it was especially obtrusive, I could pretend the author was actually a wrestler cutting a promo for his upcoming match against the Zodiac.
The second swing is the fact that he starts and stops sentences, and sometimes paragraphs, entirely at random. It's like someone told him that sentence fragments and short paragraphs can provide emphasis, but decided that every sentence was the most important in an idea. What he ends up with is a choppy style that actively prevents a reader from falling into the words. It's keeping us at arm's length for no real gain, turning what should be a breeze into a slog.
That said, it's hard to argue with his conclusions. He's got a first rate mind, there's no doubt about that. I don't know how much is my glitching pattern recognition and how much really is incontrovertible evidence, but I buy Doerr as Zodiac.
The author took two big swings, stylistically speaking, and neither one pays off. The first is that though he centers himself, talking through not just conclusions and evidence, but thought processes, opinions, and dead-ends, he chose to tell the story in the third person.
This is a precious affectation that adds precisely nothing to the book. Although from time to time, when it was especially obtrusive, I could pretend the author was actually a wrestler cutting a promo for his upcoming match against the Zodiac.
The second swing is the fact that he starts and stops sentences, and sometimes paragraphs, entirely at random. It's like someone told him that sentence fragments and short paragraphs can provide emphasis, but decided that every sentence was the most important in an idea. What he ends up with is a choppy style that actively prevents a reader from falling into the words. It's keeping us at arm's length for no real gain, turning what should be a breeze into a slog.
That said, it's hard to argue with his conclusions. He's got a first rate mind, there's no doubt about that. I don't know how much is my glitching pattern recognition and how much really is incontrovertible evidence, but I buy Doerr as Zodiac.
August 19, 2023
A book that could have been a pamphlet. Kobek wanders off topic so much it's crazy. Things I learned about that had nothing to do with who Kobek thought Zodiac might have been: the history of Libertarianism, the Society for Creative Anachronism, Kobek hates Google Street View, the publication histories of several fanzines...I could go on. Just so much off-topic padding. It starts as "I stumbled on this guy who had written a lot of stuff that read like Zodiac, so I looked into that," but then went off the rails.
Oh, and Kobek never wrote "I" at all. He made the bizarre choice to write this in the third person. It was like reading a book by Elmo. "The writer thought...", "Kobek stumbled upon...". Just a bad way to write about your own research and point and view.
Ultimately, Kobek's theory of who Zodiac was is no more or less convincing than any other, though it is interesting and has merit. He presents very little solid evidence beyond writing similarities, but there never was much evidence in this case to begin with. And even if Kobek's suspect was Zodiac, he, like all the suspects, is dead now so we will never know.
The identity of Zodiac is one of the last great mysteries and unfortunately we will never solve it. It's time to put this case to bed.
Oh, and Kobek never wrote "I" at all. He made the bizarre choice to write this in the third person. It was like reading a book by Elmo. "The writer thought...", "Kobek stumbled upon...". Just a bad way to write about your own research and point and view.
Ultimately, Kobek's theory of who Zodiac was is no more or less convincing than any other, though it is interesting and has merit. He presents very little solid evidence beyond writing similarities, but there never was much evidence in this case to begin with. And even if Kobek's suspect was Zodiac, he, like all the suspects, is dead now so we will never know.
The identity of Zodiac is one of the last great mysteries and unfortunately we will never solve it. It's time to put this case to bed.
October 31, 2022
There are some interesting coincidences in this book, but without anything more substantive we have to assume that's all they are. Kobek repeatedly states that he failed to find any evidence to rule out Doerr as Zodiac, but all I can say is I'm glad that's not how the legal system works. And anyway, how exactly would you rule him out? Alibis, fingerprints, witness testimony and forensics. None of which are mentioned or presumably pursued.
All that's here is a collection of shared interests, and the assumption that Doerr is the only person who had those interests. Fact is there doesn't seem to be much Doerr wasn't interested in. Endless trawling through an endless paper-trail left by an endless weirdo with endless interests.
Doerr is somebody worth looking into by law enforcement, and I hope that's what happens, I just don't think there's enough here to write a book around, and so it ends up being a hard slog to get through, replete with all the confirmation bias and jumping to conclusions that Zodiac fever results in.
All that's here is a collection of shared interests, and the assumption that Doerr is the only person who had those interests. Fact is there doesn't seem to be much Doerr wasn't interested in. Endless trawling through an endless paper-trail left by an endless weirdo with endless interests.
Doerr is somebody worth looking into by law enforcement, and I hope that's what happens, I just don't think there's enough here to write a book around, and so it ends up being a hard slog to get through, replete with all the confirmation bias and jumping to conclusions that Zodiac fever results in.
February 23, 2024
This is as interesting for its insight into the history of SF fanzine fandom as it is for the Zodiac parts, so it has a peculiar interest to me as an ex-fanzine editor. Initially I found the third-person narrative (as discussed by others’ reviews) very distracting and wasn’t a big fan, but I warmed to it eventually. The evidence for Paul Doerr as Zodiac starts off relatively tame, but by the end of the book I was fairly convinced; the cypher was the thing that clicked things into place for me. I believe I’m right in saying that Doerr’s fingerprints are on file, so this theory also has the benefit of being testable!
October 14, 2024
To be unfortunate enough to stumble upon the “mystery” that is the Zodiac is something that becomes even more unfortunate when you become obsessed with the topic. Kobek’s two writings on the topic are standout masterpieces that stand above the crowd of sensationalist fantasies. Motor Spirit was an explosion of an introductory course , but this is for the real freaks. This is a true crime story that has managed to suck me in for 3 books. And does it deliver. This is for the obsessed, for the ones fluent enough with Zodiac that this becomes a masterpiece of investigative journalism. Doerr was Zodiac. I am convinced and I have joined the Kobek Church. All hail this man and his writings.
June 22, 2025
Extraordinary. Kobek is wielding rare weapons here: a singularly charismatic prose style and the most convincing Zodiac theory I’ve ever encountered. This book and its companion take the reader on an incredible ride, as Kobek goes out of his way to disprove his own theory and continues to find it impossible. Ghastly evidence just piles up. It’s both poetic and indicative of American culture* that Kobek’s theory hasn’t come to dominate Zodiac discourse.
*We optimistic Americans are always asking the wrong questions, eagerly gaping at the magician’s snapping right hand instead of noticing that his left hand is performing the trick.
*We optimistic Americans are always asking the wrong questions, eagerly gaping at the magician’s snapping right hand instead of noticing that his left hand is performing the trick.
May 30, 2022
Very difficult book to review because I didn't actually like it BUT I guess it does exactly what it says on the tin. I think this is more a book for true crime/Zodiac nerds.
To be fair to Kobek his "Motor Spirit: The Long Hunt for the Zodiac" is a more general look at the Zodiac and the culture context of the time.
So in short if you're a general fan of fiction/Kobek go with Motor Spirit, but if you're a true crime/investigative super fan (deciphering evidence/ciphers etc.) How to Find Zodiac is for you.
To be fair to Kobek his "Motor Spirit: The Long Hunt for the Zodiac" is a more general look at the Zodiac and the culture context of the time.
So in short if you're a general fan of fiction/Kobek go with Motor Spirit, but if you're a true crime/investigative super fan (deciphering evidence/ciphers etc.) How to Find Zodiac is for you.
April 28, 2023
I think it's a shame this book isn't getting more attention. In my opinion, Kobek probably did solve the Zodiac case, but because of the weird third person and disorganization I can see a lot of people bouncing off this book. I hope this book picks up and leads to more evidence being discovered (one way or the other!)
July 22, 2023
Gave this one 3⭐️ because while the plausibility that Jared Kobek has actually cracked the case is fascinating, the thrill gets very lost in the weeds. The minutia of digging through all of the  fanzines along with the writer needed better editing. But I would still recommend this as obligatory reading for anyone who ever followed this case.
September 1, 2023
This book needed an editor BADLY. It's rambling and incoherent in places with lots of side tangents that make it impossible to follow the author's train of thought. This book is maybe slightly better than Motor Spirit, but it could have easily been half the size. How the author managed to make this story boring is a wonder.
April 16, 2022
A tremendous conclusion to this two-book investigation.
“Zodiac wasn’t just a killer. Zodiac wasn’t just a writer. Zodiac was a place. Zodiac was where individuals went when they wanted to prove that they were smarter than everyone else.”
Kobek has given us an indelible gift from his years of hyper specific spadework. I cannot thank him enough for presenting this culmination in such a humble and enchanting way.
“Zodiac wasn’t just a killer. Zodiac wasn’t just a writer. Zodiac was a place. Zodiac was where individuals went when they wanted to prove that they were smarter than everyone else.”
Kobek has given us an indelible gift from his years of hyper specific spadework. I cannot thank him enough for presenting this culmination in such a humble and enchanting way.
March 15, 2023
A fascinating dissection of the Zodiac through his writing that ultimately works to, probably, identify him. Kobek’s writing style is detailed, funny, and insightful. If you’ve ever cared about this case, this is a must-read.
May 12, 2023
Fascinating story, engrossing research, but just not well suited for the audiobook format. Too many addresses read, citations, and repetitive notes that when reading a physical book you would just glance over. The narrator was incredible though and I enjoyed his voice.
May 26, 2023
I really wanted to like this one more than I did. The research is very thorough and the evidence is strong. But the author gets so deep in the weeds that the book drags and loses the reader. I also don't recommend the audiobook. The narrator really made it worse.
June 28, 2023
There were times I got a little lost or it was just too much jumping from point to point with the dates. That said, the premise/theory seems very strong and he makes an extremely convincing argument.
June 6, 2024
Well he did it, Kobek caught him.
This book goes so many places but never lets up on the chase, we’ve got fan culture in the early days, we’ve got paranoid anti-pinkos, and we have a pretty definite case for who the Zodiac Killer was
This book goes so many places but never lets up on the chase, we’ve got fan culture in the early days, we’ve got paranoid anti-pinkos, and we have a pretty definite case for who the Zodiac Killer was
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