"The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco" was a fun book; finished it in one night. Capri's grandfather was a convicted serial killer known by the moniker "Overkill Bill", although he asserted that he was innocent. Capri learned this at the tender age of eight, from a school bully. Her father refused to talk about his father (William Sanzio). Instead of squashing her curiosity, her father's refusal to talk about his father made Capri want to learn more. She learned as much as she could about serial killers, and as an adult turned her hobby into a career, leading killer crime tours in San Francisco. The city had been the location of multiple serial killers over the decades, and Alcatraz was only a ferry ride away. Tidbits about the killers and/or the victims are scattered throughout the book.

Capri had contemplated writing a book about her grandfather and trying to figure out the identity of the true killer, but she had held off because of the opposition she would face from her father, as well as not wanting to appear to be trying to profit off her family's tragic past. However, when an apparent copycat killer emerges, and the second victim is Capri's ex-mother-in-law, Sylvia, everything changes, especially as Capri and her daughter Morgan are considered possible suspects as they both had heated exchanges with Sylvia after Sylvia informed Morgan she would no longer pay for her graduate school. Capri's efforts to find the real killer will reveal numerous family secrets, as well as enmesh her in the dirty undercurrent pervading San Francisco high society -- old money vs. new money, jealousy, affairs, blackmail, online fraud, insider trading, etc.