Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit
Discover the classic, behind-the-scenes chronicle of John E. Douglas’ twenty-five-year career in the FBI Investigative Support Unit, where he used psychological profiling to delve into the minds of the country’s most notorious serial killers and criminals.
In chilling detail, the legendary Mindhunter takes us behind the scenes of some of his most gruesome, fascinating, and challenging cases—and into the darkest recesses of our worst nightmares.
During his twenty-five year career with the Investigative Support Unit, Special Agent John Douglas became a legendary figure in law enforcement, pursuing some of the most notorious and sadistic serial killers of our time: the man who hunted prostitutes for sport in the woods of Alaska, the Atlanta child murderer, and Seattle's Green River killer, the case that nearly cost Douglas his life.
As the model for Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs, Douglas has confronted, interviewed, and studied scores of serial killers and assassins, including Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Ed Gein, who dressed himself in his victims' peeled skin. Using his uncanny ability to become both predator and prey, Douglas examines each crime scene, reliving both the killer's and the victim's actions in his mind, creating their profiles, describing their habits, and predicting their next moves.
Reviews (191)
We're here for the cases, John, not your life story!
This is not a book for true crime aficionados like myself. By my estimation, it was written for members of the John Douglas fan club and anyone else who needs to know the minute details of his life. In fact, I'd say it's written for people who love Douglas at least as much as he clearly loves himself. HOLY COW can this man bloviate! It is barely an exaggeration to say that pretty much every sentence in the first 100+ pages (that's how far I got before throwing in the towel) is crafted to show how amazingly smart, cool, brave, athletic and good-looking John Douglas is. Even his supposed attempts at self-deprecation are really just thinly disguised backdoor brags. When as a reader you're continuously losing your place on the page because your eyes keep rolling into the back of your head, it's time to put the book down. Perhaps my mistake was reading Robert Ressler's books first. Ressler was truly a man of humility with a love for his craft. He was instrumental in wresting the FBI from the hands of stodgy old timers convinced of their bureaucratic omnipotence and gearing it towards mining a wealth of other disciplines for their knowledge. He had true empathy for the victims and their families, yet was not beyond seeing the humanity of the monsters whose unforgivable crimes would lead others to write them off as the embodiment of pure evil, thereby forgoing time and again the opportunity to truly understand what made them -- and those like them -- tick. While being respectful overall to the individuals with whom he worked over the years -- Ressler does use the forum of his book to briefly address certain intra-office gripes he had over his illustrious career. It should come as no surprise that he intimated very briefly that Douglas had a habit of overstating his own role in certain major cases (Ressler says he straight-up LIES with regards to his relationship with John Wayne Gacy). Unlike with Douglas, the bulk of Ressler's books focus on the cases and their psychological underpinnings, in addition to the perpetrators and victims. In other words, his books deliver what true crime connoisseurs are seeking. In Douglas, I found a writer far too consumed by the cult of his own personality to focus much on actual crime. Perhaps that story changes somewhere well into the triple-digit pages, but I eventually lost interest in slogging through how amazing John Douglas is to find out.
The beginning of the BAU
This is an amazing book. I loved the Netflix series and look forward to season 2. I picked this book up to read the REAL story of John Douglas. John is a real person with real problems he had to deal with. I admire the fact he didn't hide them to make him look like a supercop. He is a man that is detail oriented and took notes. Putting all he heard together with some gut instinct, came up with a manual cops can use today to locate prolific killers and even those who may have only had one killing incident. He can be caught before he can take another life. This is what I found to be so interesting as John leads the reader through the painful beginnings of the BAU. He captured my interest and held it throughout the entire book. I bought the audio version and I'm glad I did. The reader made John come alive for me. He sounded firm, yet vulnerable, aggressive yet sensitive. If you want to know how profiling became an integral part of criminal investigation this is the book to read. I hope to read more of his books this coming year.
One Of The Best Books On Criminal Justice Around
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.
John Douglas loves... John Douglas
Compelled by Netflix's excellent series based on this book I bought it. Couldn't even finish it. It's John Douglas's homage to John Douglas. The ego on this guy is incredible! Too much about him and not enough substance about the work he did.
GREAT BOOK!!
I loved this book!!! A mixture of his life story and profiling cases for the FBI. Very close to the Netflix series, I watched right after reading. Not sure why some reviewers say he is full of himself, I didn’t get that at all. There are times you have to mention certain things because it’s simply part of the story and can’t be left out. I also saw people saying it was boring. I can only guess these people are paid trolls to leave negative feedback, or aren’t interested in behavior science because it was never boring, it was fascinating. Full of cases. I just ordered Obsession, looking forward to it!! *The book was bent up pretty bad from shipping, but that was Amazons fault and I didn’t want to have to wait and go through hassle to return. Fixed it best I could.
A landmark book and a good read
A compelling look at how criminals think and what you can learn about the criminal, from the crime. Your feelings on the book will be swayed by how you feel about the writer himself. He's very convinced of his skill and his personality really comes though in the writing. The only downside to this book is that the first 3 chapters are all context and background on the writer himself. Its well written and does help in a better understanding of the writer, but for a book about profiling killers its not nearly as engaging as the rest of the book. But overall quite a unique and thought provoking book.
An great book...
...to learn how not to write something! Every time I've heard an editor tell me: "Show me! Don't tell me!" I would get confused and not know what their getting at. Well this book is the best example I can give to you! The whole book is an old dude telling you stories of when he was on the force. A terrible narration at that! At the same time, that old dude telling you stories is the legendary John Douglas. This book is an amazing source of information from the procedural perspective of a criminal profiler that was one of the founders of the BSU in the FBI. If you want to learn more about that, dive right in. If you want a very interesting book with good narration, different perspectives, nuanced view of criminal justice or other, go elsewhere.
Interesting experiences told moderately well.
These are interesting stories, though the story telling us a little tiring. It feels a bit self-serving, which while understandable, is grating after a while. Otherwise, the author has had some singularly unique experiences.
Tough to put down!
John Douglas is an impeccable and intelligent author. This updated version of his original is definitely worth your time!
Great Book but Lose the Ego
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.
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