Finding the Lost Girls: The Hunt to Solve a Serial Killer's Cold Cases

The women in Joe Naso's photographs were supposed to be modeling subjects. Instead, they became victims — and for decades, no one connected the dots. "Finding the Lost Girls" follows investigator Paul Holes as he pieces together a cold case that spanned counties, decades, and a killer who hid in plain sight as a portrait photographer. What makes this story so unsettling is not just the crimes themselves but how long they went unnoticed — and what it took to finally bring them into the light. Holes brings the same meticulous, evidence-driven mindset he applied to the Golden State Killer case, and it shows.

Co-written with Peter McDonnell, the book reads less like true-crime spectacle and more like a methodical reconstruction — the kind that rewards patient readers who want to understand how investigations actually work, not just what happened. Holes writes from the inside, sharing the dead ends, institutional friction, and small breakthroughs that define real casework. The result is a portrait of investigative persistence that keeps the victims at its center rather than letting the killer overshadow them.