So my car was in the shop the other day, having a panel replaced; I was flicking through the obligatory stock of men’s magazines provided in the waiting room – sans tissues – and found a review of a new movie, Zodiac.

A serial killer in the San Francisco Bay Area taunts police with his letters and cryptic messages. We follow the investigators and reporters in this lightly fictionalized account of the true 1970’s case as they search for the murderer, becoming obsessed with the case. Based on Robert Graysmith’s book, the movie’s focus is the lives and careers of the detectives and newspaper people.

The only reason I comment here is due to the still which the magazine chose to illustrate the movie:

Jake Gyllenhaal is holding up a copy of Dave Kahn’s Codebreakers – the same edition I’ve got, and the same book which I’ve seen on Diffie’s shelf and which I believe was likewise instrumental in getting him interested in the topic, let alone me.

So what is it with the book and the movie? Is there a real serial-killer link? Hollywood invention? Both?