Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit

A very intriguing and interesting walk through the mind of an FBI Criminal Profiler, John E. Douglass. Excellent, thorough details on the intricate thinking and calculating it takes to catch our nation’s worst serial killers in striving to keep the public safe. It also relays quite well the intense amount of stress and the mental, emotional and physical toll such a serious profession can take dealing on a daily basis with the worst cases of humanity. The intricate analysis that goes into establishing the details of these criminal’s profiles is extremely interesting to me. I strongly believe others intrigued by forensics, criminal profiling and the coordination of work amongst our police forces to catch the nation’s worst killers will keep you on the edge of your seats. Extending sincere appreciation, genuine gratitude and the utmost respect to John E. Douglass, his fellow FBI profilers, and to all the men and women across our great nation striving to protect and serve every single day. Thank you for all each of you do and for all you give of yourselves doing it. Salute!

I read this when it was first released and enjoyed it again now. John Douglas is one of the best people in the industry. The book reads a little heavy when he talks about himself ( I think he is a little narcissistic but then again, everyone is a little). It gets descriptive and hard to read at times because of the graphic nature of the crimes, but it’s well written.

As a senior at the University of Maryland double majoring in Criminal Justice and Psychology I picked up this book because of professional interests. The beginning is told like most prideful autobiographies that have the intention of communicating the God-like nature of the author (think Dick Marcinco - The Rogue Warrior, Frank W. Abagnale Jr. - Catch Me If You Can etc.)The descriptions of John Douglas' younger years were kind of tedious and uninteresting(the first 65 pages or so,) as the reason I picked up the book was to get a better overall understanding of investigative profiling. Most of the book is fairly well written, and interesting to read. Douglas points out that he has been the lead profiler in many of the serial crimes cases that Americans seem to wet their pants over. (The Unabomber, The Atlanta-Child Murderer, The Green River Killer) He also describes the process by which he interviewed many serial killers after they were caught. Most of the book is dedicated to showing the accuracy of criminal profiles when done by someone who knows what they're talking about. Douglas proves this point over and over again, making ney-sayers look stupid over and over again. I enjoyed the book, but I had several issues with its content. 1. When Douglas relates his first person encounters with criminal interviewing he often goes into an extremely poor writing style exchanging the first person for the second, and exchanging the past tense for the present. He also is fond of using the term "like" a lot just like a valley girl. An example of this would be "Then we were all like this guy is crazy. . ." instead of "I knew what the other team members were thinking, we all thought he was crazy. . ." Because of this, I often found myself rephrasing this poor form of writing while I was reading it in order to get a better understanding. 2. It has some fallacious information do to the publication date. I think newer editions should come with extra content do to the development of what has recently happened in several cases mentioned in the end of the book. Mainly that the Green-River killer turned out to be - one person(not three) - Garry Ridgway; And that BTK was caught and shown to be Dennis Rader. Douglas also gives a bit of spurious information at the end about how Jack the Ripper was the first media sensationalized serial killer - that was actually Gilles De Rais. He probably just didn't consider the French media of the 1400's to be sensationalized enough. Besides those two points Dr. Douglas did a fine job telling of his experiences and definitely got me interested in the field of investigative criminal profiling. If your looking for a more collegiate version of this book without the personal annals check out Robert K. Resslers (John Douglas' partner) Profilers: Leading Investigators Take You Inside The Criminal Mind

This was a great look at how it all started. It was recommended by one of host of a podcast Small Town Murders. It is definitely worth your time to read it.

Wanting to read the book because of the show I decided to give this book a try. All I can say after that is.....Man! I was hooked! This book is incredibly well written and a total page turner. Whats most appealing about it compared to other books that deal with the same topic is that it is very simple to understand. A lot of criminal books are very complex and you have to go into them already knowing some aspects of the system it presents to you but thankfully, this book is written knowing you probably aren't an FBI agent yourself. The author John Douglas, starts off the book going into his background and how he got involved with the Bureau and after that, the book just literally goes case by case, crime by crime, killer by killer, from chapter to chapter with some elements of the author's personal life progressing through. If you are really into knowing what the mindset of serial killers are (just like the author was) then this book is totally for you. You could probably finish it in just a couple days if you have nothing else going on. The book is about 409 pages long but that felt like nothing by the time I reached the end due to how addictive it was to read. The Physical Book Itself: It looks like Amazon now sells the Netflix TV show edition of the novel which is the one I received and its a rather large paperback but the font size of the words in the book is large and easy to see and/or read if thats a concern you might have. My book came in a little beat up which was kinda annoying but nonetheless, this edition is a worthwhile purchase.

GREAT book! Enjoyed the whole thing. John Douglas is the man.

Fantastic! Criminal profiling is one of my main interests or hobbies if you want to call it that and this is like the classic primer. John Douglas is the man who coined the term "profiling"; he didn't invent it, but he basically started the modern science we know today. I didn't learn anything new about the psychology, but this was fascinating from an historical point of view as a memoir and a history of the BSU and the FBI itself. Douglas joined the FBI when Hoover was still the Chief and if you know anything about those times you'll know J. Edgar thought the "soft" sciences were a bunch of b.s. and a small clandestine group was working behind his back quietly using psychology on an inquiry-based only system and this is where Douglas first found himself. However, the book starts with Douglas' birth, childhood, college drop-out, military service, etc. before it even gets to his enrollment in the Bureau. I enjoy memoirs and found his writing style highly readable, relishing the book from the get-go. Then, of course, I became fascinated when Douglas turns to his work in the FBI, relates how profiling worked its way into being a legitimate technique, his famous study of interviewing living serial killers to find out how they thought and his work on famous cases including everything from The Trailside Killer, The Atlanta Child Murders and The Tylenol Murders. Douglas has earned himself some controversy over the years; some people find his writing style arrogant. This is the only book I've read by him but I've got its sequel on hold at the library already! so it won't be my last. Obviously I didn't find him arrogant in the least and his serial killer interviews (conducted with two others) are admittedly a giant breakthrough that even his detractors cannot dismiss.

I'm sure that as with many readers, I came to the book "Mindhunter" after watching the Netflix series. While both are highly worthwhile, the TV show is heavily fictionalized. Parts of Douglas's book--like the interviews with Kemper, Manson, and Berkowitz; and the Atlanta child murders--make their way into the show, but the characters are composites, and a number of plot points are made up. So if you want the true skinny on profiling, read Douglas's "Mindhunter." The book is filled with actual cases Douglas assisted with, so if you're a fan of true crime you'll 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 of the Netflix show, but he also highlights many cases not on the show. (I recognized a couple from episodes of "Forensic Files.") And he moves beyond serial murder to talk about a bomber, a pill bottle tamperer, a potential political assassin, even Jack the Ripper. 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. But I think this book would've benefited from far more humility. Why didn't the co-author keep this in check? Toward the end of "Mindhunter," Douglas 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's of course entitled to his beliefs, and he has a lot of direct experience to base them on, but they don't really have a place in this book. Douglas never shows us any adversity. With the exception of one case (Green River killer), he never mentions a profile that didn't 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 they were ultimately caught.