Zebra

Edgar Award Finalist: The true story of a string of brutal crimes committed in the name of religious fanaticism and racial hatred in 1970s San Francisco. In the early 1970s, a small band of well-dressed, clean-cut African American men began terrorizing the residents of San Francisco with guns and machetes. Their victims ranged from a teenage Salvation Army cadet to a middle-aged Jordanian grocer to an eighty-one-year-old janitor. The streets became deserted and tourism plunged. It took months before the culprits could be identified, with the help of an informer. They were members of a Black Muslim cult aspiring to earn the title 'Death Angel' by slaughtering white victims. Combining history and dramatic recreations, this is the 'repellent but riveting' in-depth story of a horrifying killing spree and the fanatical hatred that drove it and the SFPD's desperate quest to take the culprits down (Kirkus Reviews). '[Clark Howard's] pounding narrative meticulously describes the so-called Zebra killings of 1973 74, when 23 white San Franciscans were murdered or maimed by a group of Black Muslim extremists. In the retelling, the cold jargon of police files leaps starkly to life.' Time