SOURCE: "New Respect for the New Centurions," in Los Angeles Times, July 10, 1995, pp. E1, E2.

[In the following essay, Romero profiles true-crime writer Paul Mones.]

Dead, mangled and strangled women stared at Paul Mones for three years while he tried to capture their horror in mere words.

He plastered their crime-scene Polaroids around his Santa Monica office and listened to Verdi operas as dark inspiration for his new true-crime book, Stalking Justice. Most of the victims were ornately tied up with rope, string or miniblind chords. One was badly decomposed. Another stared at Mones, her eyes bulging with the terror that marked her last moments as a living being. They were the strangulation victims of a serial killer who stalked the streets of Virginia during the 1980s.

What makes this story special to readers is that it is a juicy, true-crime page-turner (lock your windows), and in this...