ATTENTION BOOK EDITORS: Just out, retired San Francisco Homicide Inspector Frank Falzon's true crime memoir of his career during the violent 1970s and 1980s.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, August 9, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Frank Falzon, who investigated more than 300 murder cases during his 22-year career as a San Francisco police homicide inspector, has published a true crime memoir of his experiences during the violent 1970s and 1980s, an era one national crime historian calls “the golden age of serial murder.”

"San Francisco Homicide Inspector 5-Henry-7" is Falzon’s unvarnished, intensely personal tale of an extraordinary and prolific career.

"Frank Falzon is the quintessential San Francisco cop ... smart, tough, and loyal, with a heart of gold," says former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos. "He confronted and solved crimes during the most challenging times in San Francisco history. His real-life story easily eclipses the myth of Dirty Harry."

“Frank Falzon is an icon, an SFPD legend,” says Jim Bloom, a former aide to San Francisco Mayor (now U.S. Senator) Dianne Feinstein. “He got all the big cases. He is to San Francisco what Frank Serpico and Eddie Egan are to New York.”

“5-Henry-7” was Falzon’s individual radio call sign in the department. The number 5 designated the Inspectors Bureau, Henry was phonetic for the H in Homicide, and he was inspector number 7 in the detail. The book highlights the highly decorated inspector’s most intriguing and high-profile cases and how the backstory of his youth, his father’s death at a young age, and early years as a patrolman shaped his career on the force.

In San Francisco Homicide Inspector 5-Henry-7, Falzon describes how he and his partner were the first to identify the Night Stalker serial killer by his full name in 1985, resulting in the capture of Richard Ramirez within 48 hours. Ramirez had murdered, raped, tortured, and terrorized dozens of people in Southern California and San Francisco for months.

Falzon also recounts his highly publicized role as the lead inspector in the shocking November 1978 assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in their City Hall offices by former city supervisor and former cop Dan White. Falzon’s relationship with White went all the way back to their childhood.

Falzon also writes about his investigation of such cases as the so-called Zebra murders of random white victims by extremist Black Muslims; Chol Soo Lee and the Chinatown gang murder that inspired the acclaimed Hollywood film True Believer; the execution-style killing of prison reformer Popeye Jackson by underground radicals; a savage Potrero Hill home invasion; and a streetcorner shootout with an armed robber.

Coming out of the Summer of Love and the heyday of the Haight-Ashbury flower power scene in the late 1960s, San Francisco mutated over the next two decades into a city under siege by serial killers, radical underground extremists, antiestablishment groups, gangs, and drug wars. The rise in violence brought a spike in murders that put unprecedented pressure on the San Francisco Police Department and its storied homicide squad. Inspector Frank Falzon represents the best of those elite detectives.

Falzon was featured in the popular 2021 Netflix documentary, Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer has been depicted in movies, plays, and video games, and has been featured internationally in numerous documentaries, media interviews, magazine articles, and books.

Falzon’s co-author is Duffy Jennings, an author and prize-winning former San Francisco Chronicle crime reporter from the same era. Jennings’s byline appeared on more than 500 Chronicle articles and he covered many of the same murder cases in the book.

The book is now available on Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Google, Apple Books, and other online retailers and in local bookstores. Autographed copies are available on both authors’ websites, https://frankfalzon.com/the-book/ and https://duffyjennings.com/books/5-henry-7/.

Frank Falzon
Duffy Jennings
+1 415-897-3429
frankjfalzon@yahoo.com