Good book, disturbing. ( )

Unlike many readers, I came to the book "Mindhunter" because I wanted to watch the Netflix series. The book is filled with actual cases Douglas assisted with, so if you are a fan of true crime, you will enjoy it. I was intrigued by the novel techniques Douglas used to capture killers. His profiles were often spot-on, but he was also a pioneer of using the media to draw out criminals, and he also created some effective interrogation tactics. Some of the cases Douglas describes are familiar to fans. Once again, I recommend the book to any true crime fan for the wealth of law enforcement information. I loved reading about how Douglas and his team solved these terrible crimes. However, "Mindhunter" flags whenever Douglas inserts too much of his personality--primarily his ego--into it. He constantly boasts about how busy and successful he was, how he flouted FBI conventions to get things done, how he singlehandedly developed the profiling wing, how his profiles were never wrong, even things as unnecessary to the story as how successful he was with women and how attractive his wife was. I suppose it takes a great deal of confidence to create profiles of unsubs and pass them off to other law enforcement personnel, convinced of their accuracy. Douglas at one point also veers from his profiles and starts giving the reader his opinions on capital punishment and ways to fix the amount of violent crime in the US. He is of course entitled to his beliefs, and he has a lot of direct experience to base them on, but they do not always have a place in this book. Douglas never shows us any adversity. Except for one case (Green River killer), he never mentions a profile that did not work. He even depicts his relationship with his wife as more successful now than ever, even though she divorced him. And he talks up his TV appearances and the fact he advised Thomas Harris ("Tom") when Harris was writing books like "Silence of the Lambs." We get it: Douglas is awesome. But he never seems to realize that his ego and opinions take a backseat to the gruesome killers in this book and how the killers were ultimately caught in the end. I enjoyed this and may pick up book two in this series but I did not love it. ( )

Part autobiography, part true crime, and part history of the FBI’s development of criminal profiling, this book kept me absorbed while waiting in line, avoiding chores, and at the ballpark waiting for the game to start. Not only does the author discuss how their theories were developed and tested, he gives many examples from real cases.

It does have flaws, though. The casual, spoken-word style of narrative implies that this was ghost-written from recorded interview sessions and is a little off-putting. Douglas also chooses to only share examples where their profiles were a match to the killer, giving the impression that they were flawless in their predictions. I know that can’t possibly be the case, and the very fact that he offers this pretense of perfection makes the whole book a little suspect, whereas if he’d included an honest discussion of trial and error and the limitations of this work, or even where it can go badly wrong if misapplied, I’d have more confidence in the conclusions/assertions he forwards.

Paperback version, found in a fairly yellowed and tattered state at a used bookstore.

I read this book for the Booklikes Halloween Bingo 2019, for the square Serial/Spree Killer: A sub-genre of crime fiction that involves the detection of serial or spree killers. That, of course, is the whole point of this book. ( )

A must read for anyone interested in criminal profiling. ( )

This guy's life is so interesting. It's awesome finding out more about the cases he investigated. ( )

This could've been really good, but Douglas is preoccupied with self-hagiography, spending far more time painting himself as the smartest person in the room--or in the FBI--than explaining his work. ( )

I'm not really a "true crime" guy -- generally hate that stuff, but I found this on my dad's bookshelf a few years ago and it was pretty fascinating. ( )

Read this after finishing Mindhunter on Netflix. It was interesting comparing and contrasting the two. I would have liked the book to delve deeper into the prison visits more but it is what it is. The book was well written and read like a conversation with Mr. Douglas. Totally recommended, if you’re into this kind of stuff. ( )

It's criminal (heh) how boring this book was. ( )

Okay, so the last book I read about true crime was like "sometimes reality is worse than fiction" and then didn't really deliver any fucked up crimes to prove that point. This book however? Jesus. Fucking. Christ. I consume A LOT of trume crime, I've watched a lot of seasons of Criminal Minds and so on, but there were things in this book where I had to take a moment and just stare out the bus window before I could continue reading. I mean ... the guy with the teeth. I will never get over that.

So, yeah, if you're into true crime and murder, you are going to enjoy this book. I even like the personal stories, I don't know how many people I retold the story of the failed (but not really) proposal because it's pretty hilarious. Sometimes I think it's a bit too much "he he he we're such a bunch of goofy pranksters" but you need some lightness in the book too.

I completely disagree on the death penalty though, and this book is pretty pro-death penalty in the case of really evil people. I agree that they're horrible people and I don't mourn them for a second, but a democracy cannot have the death penalty and still be a democracy. Just ... insert that Gandalf quote here I guess. But that opinion was not presented in a way that made me dislike the book and given what the author must've seen in his life, I definitely see why you'd think that. But I do not agree.

Oh, and when I picked it up I had no idea it was released like 20 years ago. It was so weird reading about how we don't know who BTK is, but obv there was a time we didn't (hell, until very recently we didn't know how the Golden State Killer was either). But you quickly adjusted to how "old" the book was, so no problem.

Next up: Mindhunter the TV series! ( )

All the stuff dealing with profiling and the crimes was very interesting. Disturbing, obviously, but very interesting. On the other hand, I really didn't care for Douglas as a human being. He's smart and moved the field forward, of course, but he really comes of as having a huge ego and a bit of a douche bag.

Also hope I don't have nightmares about killers. ( )

This was such a good read. The writing had me hooked from the start. The information that was presented was readable so anybody essentially can read it. I highly recommend this. ( )

A marginally better book than Whoever Fights Monsters by Douglas' contemporary Robert Ressler, this one is a mixed bag.

Other reviews saying you have to get through about 100 pages before it gets to the good content are correct. Douglas spends so much time flaunting a massive ego during which we must be told how tall, athletic, smart, attractive to women and generally brilliant he was at anything he ever turned his hand to, I found it excrutiating enough to almost DNF.

After about a hundred pages of this (including such notes as him being too tall and muscular to meet the FBI's standards at the time, having all the women typists at a field office fighting over him when he was "single" even though he was engaged and took weeks to tell them, and basically bragging about weighing up leaving his fiancee for a very wealthy woman who was into him) we get to the meat of the matter in terms of studying incarcerated killers and profiling active cases.

That's generally good material although he follows Ressler's example of being very self-congratulatory about accuracy of profile details and never gives a real example of a profile being off. He also repeats Ressler's mistake of claiming as fact the notion that the "Wearside Jack" Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer was a retired police officer with a grudge when the hoaxer was not identified until 10 years after he wrote this book and was nothing of the sort. As I noted in my review of Ressler's book, if the author is going to present that baseless speculation as fact, it undermines the credibility of everything else he writes.

At the end there's a half-hearted "Sometimes the dragon wins" chapter where some (at the time) uncaught killers are discussed, primarily BTK and the Green River Killer. Notably, Douglas does not give us the detail of his profiles on these cases so unlike earlier examples where he can brag about accuracy here he seems to be unwilling to risk the embarrassment of being wrong. He tries to take credit for his profile scaring BTK into stopping but with hindsight that doesn't seem to be the case. He also is convinced the Green River cases were likely 3 separate killers but he was ultimately wrong about that as well. So these since-solved cases go to show that he is not the infallible genius he otherwise presents himself as and I imagine there were a lot more lessons that could be taken from the other cases if he was a bit more humble.

If you're coming at this from the true crime perspective, you could honestly skip straight to chapter 6 "Taking the show on the road". That is certainly what I'll be doing if I re-read it. I'm torn between 2 and 3 stars but I don't do half stars so I'm going to round down because I just couldn't stand Douglas' self-aggrandizing personality. ( )

Still an interesting read, but the way Douglas dismisses women and describes his female co-workers is certainly "of its time." ( )

作者小時候的願望居然是成為獸醫，我真的太經常無意遇上原本要當獸醫後來轉行得千奇百怪的作者寫的書了8（。

大概是FBI探員常以幽默（尤其是黑色幽默）來排解壓力的緣故，行文非常淺顯易懂，四百頁刷刷看完，雖然題材沉重但卻是相當不錯的休閒讀物之選。大致看了下 Goodreads 的評價，還好我不是唯一一個覺得作者在某些部分（尤其是談及個人生活時）顯得格外自大臭屁 obnoxious 的讀者⋯⋯雖不至於不忍卒讀，但讓人很有衝過去理論一番的衝動

第18章特別值得深思，執法者和精神醫生的角度有很大不同，前者力圖阻止扼殺犯罪、而後者力爭罪犯人權得到保障，但是靠自述如何能斷定一個窮凶極惡之人真的有心改過、以及對罪犯的人性化處理和寬容是不是對受害者和家屬乃至執法者的殘忍，這兩點都非常值得社會討論。之前也瀏覽過一本DSM編者反對DSM的過度使用，感覺確實是術業有專攻，犯罪心理還是交給犯罪心理學家來處理比較好。看完這本大概適合立馬接著讀 Stephen Seager 的 Behind the Gates of Gomorrah

以及常和死者打交道的職業似乎特別容易遇上家庭問題，上次看的法醫回憶錄也是一樣婚姻無法維繫⋯⋯ ( )

Those cases are either cherry-picked for the accuracy of profiles or this is witchcraft. The cases are fascinating and disturbing but the author sometimes comes across as a bit deranged himself - occupational disease? I guess working with cases like this all your life would affect everyone. ( )

This book is the basis for season 1 of the HBO Mindhunter series, so much so that I wonder what they'll do next. Maybe HBO could use Ressler's book for the next season.

I've read this and Ressler's Whoever Fights Monsters. Obviously the FBI has competent and motivated people, but it's clear that much of the vaunted Behavioral Science mystique is educated guesswork and cold reading. ( )

People are crazy and thanks to these guys they figured out way to find the crazies. Hard to believe this book is 20 years old. Not sure if I want to read about the current crime stories, but I am sure it would be just as fascinating. ( )

There's no denying that John Douglas, those who came before him, and those who came after him have helped shape the ideas of profiling and criminal investigation in popular culture. Given the many ways media take shortcuts with investigative procedure, it's quite interesting to get more accurate information straight from the source.

It's also fitting that Douglas comes across as a person who's difficult to like. There's an arrogant undertone to his writing and a bit of narcissistic flair to the way he developed, shaped, and writes about his programs. And that makes sense: it takes a hell of a lot of self-confidence to completely overhaul a division of the FBI. What colors my professional opinion of Douglas, though, is his disdain for science, research, and criticism.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote an interesting article for the New Yorker discussing research that's been done into Douglas's strain of profiling and that has questioned its efficacy. The researchers and Gladwell are right: Douglas's approach is not based any sort of psychological science that would hold water and moreover, Douglas is very dismissive about that fact and the academics who are critical of him. Douglas had some academic psychological training and holds a Ph.D. Training in his era wasn't heavily research-based, but standards in the field have changed significantly over time and he should have kept up with them, especially as he was developing techniques he's taught to thousands of people.

There's an NPR follow-up to Gladwell's New Yorker article, wherein Douglas artfully avoids answering most of the questions posed to him. Over time, we've also come to learn that many of the foundational forensic science practices (fingerprints, dental impressions, fire science) aren't nearly as accurate as we thought they were and certainly aren't as accurate as they need to be.

If you're picking up this book, I think it's definitely worth falling down the rabbit hole and looking at the criticisms of current forensic science. It's fascinating and, should you ever be called for jury duty, I'm sure all parties involved will welcome have an educated and informed juror. ( )

A bit slow at times, but very interesting. ( )

Bored to tears. Pedantic and not at all thrilling. Abandoned at 17%. ( )

This was a fascinating look at how criminal profiling got started in the FBI, written by the man who was so integral to its application. Douglas discusses in detail how profiling was used in many infamous, as well as lesser-known, cases (so detailed that it sometimes got hard to read because of what he was describing). I did feel the book, particularly the early chapters, sometimes felt too much like a biography of Douglas, as opposed to a focus on profiling, and that Douglas sometimes came across as bragging a little too much. But everything he accomplished with his team is amazing, and so interesting. ( )

I'm not really a "true crime" guy -- generally hate that stuff, but I found this on my dad's bookshelf a few years ago and it was pretty fascinating. ( )

Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit

by John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker

Upon retiring, Special Agent John Douglas was finally able to share his story. He is the elite pioneer of what we now know as criminal profiling. He is also the model for the chief male agent in the book and movie, “Silence of the Lambs”. In this book, Douglas takes us into the early days of the FBI’s special unit for this highly specialized field.

Special Agent Douglas was involved in several notorious crimes, including John Wayne Gacy, the Tylenol poisoning case, the Atlanta Child Murders, and the Green River Killer. His profiling of the criminal mind was integral in solving these among other major crimes.

To hone his skills, Douglas studied and interviewed the likes of infamous serial killers Richard Speck, Charles Manson John Wayne Gacy and other serious offenders. This enabled him to understand the working of their mind, as well as what drove them to commit such heinous crimes.

A fascinating psychological read, this is also an excellent account of true criminal justice. Fans of the TV show “Criminal Minds” will certainly appreciate this compelling book. ( )

John Douglas takes us through his history first, his experiences growing up, what made him decide to become an FBI agent and how he used profiling even before he became an agent and knew what it was. While he does not mince words when describing crimes the descriptions are neither gratuitous nor graphic, what comes through all his narration is respect and sympathy for the victims. He explains that profiling is an investigation into the why of a crime, and why this is important in solving certain types of crime.He also details the interviews he and another agent had with convicted serial killers and how this has helped him and other agents fine tune their investigative skills. I would recommend this book to those who enjoy reading about investigative technique (profiling) and psychology. ( )