TRACKRS (True Crime Book)

A rare true crime story centered on truth and redemption:

• Written by the prosecutor who lived the investigation

• Balances psychological depth with real-life suspense

• Winner of multiple book awards

"From the very first page, I had serious difficulty in putting this book down. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading true crime novels. I am in awe." – NPB Reader (Amazon)

About the author:

Michael A. Jacobs served nearly 30 years as a prosecutor in Orange County, California, including 13 years in the Homicide Unit. He founded the TRACKRS task force, which solved six long-cold murders and exonerated a wrongfully convicted man, and later established the Orange County Innocence Project. Named Prosecutor of the Year in 1996, Jacobs continues to practice law privately in California and is writing his second book about the justice system. Learn more at his website.

"In a presentation unlike any other true crime story, TRACKRS takes the reader through all the stages involved in the pursuit of a serial killer. The perpetrator assaulted six young women in Orange County, California in the late 1970s, murdering five and killing the unborn child of the sixth.

The narration provides a detailed chronicle of an intricate murder investigation put together by multiple law enforcement agencies in 1996. From the initial review of police and coroner’s reports, interagency issues, organization of data and analysis, composition of the investigation team, the interrogation and arrest of the suspect, the freeing of an innocent man wrongly convicted of one of the offenses, to the resulting trial for six counts of murder, the reader gets it all. Including transcripts of the defendant’s recorded statements and courtroom testimony, all the “in the trenches” and raw details are recounted as seen through the eyes of the author, a veteran homicide prosecutor who initiated the investigation and followed the case through to the jury’s final verdict."

4.5 This is a non-filter raw in your face true crime story told with detail. My favorite part is actually the behind the scenes. How he didn't let these cases go, how he requested databases and new ways to approach these, and seeing how what we take now for granted (technology and lab work) was just taking its baby steps during the years of this case, and how scary it is that so many crimes could have been ignored because of that. Now the system is more advanced, but so are the resources of the perpetrators. This is not an easy read due to the detail provided by the murderer, but it's a good example for those readers who want to get a step forward into a distilled and edited information that usually gets to a Netflix documentary. It's not a short book either, but the font is large enough that it makes it easier to read.