John E. Douglas

FBI Special Agent John Douglas, known as the Mindhunter, takes readers behind the scenes of some of his most gruesome, fascinating, and challenging cases.

Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit

Mindhunter

Mark Olshaker

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—the basis for the upcoming Netflix original series. 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.

Douglas acknowledges the Dragon and says he believes crime to be a problem of morality. Fine, but in his prose one senses the traditional, technerd lawman who doesn't really have an answer for the core problem. The book's conclusion has Douglas kind of say this in his own words, but one gets the impression that Douglas truly believes in the analysis. Smartest guy on the clean up crew.

Paige LeBook

LOVED this book. Some of the details of the murders we’re grotesque and hard to read though. 

Alicia Evans

Patrick Book

It is, at least, as interesting as it was when I was a teenager. But I’d probably rather watch the show now. The show is good!

Now a Netflix original series 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.

3.5 of 5 stars

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"If you want to understand the artist, look at his work..."

I already know about the TV series Mindhunter long before I discovered that it was adapted from a memoir of one of the first generation FBI profiler, though I haven't actually seen the adaptation. And for that, I don't really know how well the TV series is. While reading this book, I was more reminded about my most favorite TV series ever, the Criminal Minds. That series is also about a group of FBI agents performing behavioral profiling in order to catch the culprit. I've learned that the characters of Jason Gideon and David Rossi from that series were based on John Douglas, the author of this book. I was so fascinated about the fact that I was so familiar with all the terms used in this book that I have no difficulty to get into it. I was so engrossed with every cases. It was like I was still watching the TV series in my head. The only thing that I have a certain problem with was the numerous names appeared in this book. Names of the criminals, victims, forensic staffs, FBI agents and other police authorities. I know that it was inevitable as a lot of people was involved in this kind of situation but having a lot of it in a single book, it was quite hard to catch up sometimes. I knew that specific criminal at one point but if he was mentioned again at the later chapters, I was like "who was he again?" The same goes with other group of people in the book. But I appreciated the real-life pictures shown at the last part of the book. Photos of the author's pre-FBI life, his FBI colleagues, some of their case consultation meetings, the location of some operations, the interview with some notorious criminals, the inside of one of the criminals trophy room. Those photos showed how real all of this were.

Overall, I was so interested in everything about this and I am now convinced that I wanted more books like this. I realized that I am so into true crime books. But right now, I think have no more excuse not to watch the Mindhunter TV series. I think I am going to like it a lot, just like how I like this book.

Derek Barlas

Got this after watching the Mindhunter Netflix series. Very good.

Lara Engle

Mindhunter does not shy away from giving the full, often clinical description of serial murderers and what they do. It is frequently disturbing, but also fascinating. It's an interesting combination of memoir and instruction manual on the art and science of criminal profiling. I've read criticisms that state that Douglas is arrogant, but I honestly don't think you can call it arrogance when someone is genuinely good at what they do. He's not only good; he actually developed the science of profiling with his team at the FBI. That's not to say he's perfect (which he would, and does, readily admit). My main qualm about him is his frequent use of the term "inadequate loser" in profiles. I guess I just don't like the dismissiveness implied in its use. Every killer ended up that way due to something, or more likely many things, in their past. Calling them inadequate losers doesn't help solve the problem of how they got there, nor does it help us figure out how to prevent others from getting there in the future.

THE BESTSELLING TRUE STORY THAT INSPIRED THE MAJOR NETFLIX SERIESFBI Special Agent and expert in criminal profiling and behavioural science, John Douglas, is a man who has looked evil in the eye and made a vocation of understanding it. Now retired, Douglas can let us inside the FBI elite serial crime unit and into the disturbed minds of some of the most savage serial killers in the world.The man who was the inspiration for Special Agent Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambsand who lent the film's makers his expertise explains how he invented and established the practice of criminal profiling; what it was like to submerge himself mentally in the world of serial killers to the point of 'becoming' both perpetrator and victim; and individual case histories including those of Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy and the Atlanta child murders.With the fierce page-turning power of a bestselling novel, yet terrifyingly true, Mindhunter is a true crime classic.John Douglas knows more about serial killers than anybody in the world - Jonathan Demme, Director of The Silence of the LambsA cracker of a book - Esquire

Bilge Ince

We would later realize that this childhood trait of cruelty to small animals was the keystone of what came to be known as the “homicidal triad,” also including enuresis, or bed-wetting, beyond the normally appropriate age and fire-starting.

If you’re into true crime and looking for a comprehensive study about the mindset of famous notorious mass murdered this is the book. The authors of this book are the ones who come up with a “serial killer” term and as well as the founder of the FBI Behavioral Science Unit. I read the book so slowly in a month honestly. I read it like an article, took notes, and even time to time, I stop reading and doing some basic and sometimes deep research about the topic or victim and also an offender. So, even if I didn’t like the beginning since there were so many names and place made me confuse, I loved the rest of the book. Because John Douglas who is also an old FBI agent is a chilling narrator when it comes to serial killers, rapists, child murder types of crimes, and answering who and why questions. So, he talks most of the time about this insane crimes and criminals who commit it.

There is a series which is also named as Mindhunter on Netflix and also It is fantastic. I watched the series before I was aware there is even a book about the very real story. 

 Behavior reflects personality. The best indicator of future violence is past violence. To understand the "artist", you must study his "art". The crime must be evaluated in its totality. There is no substitute for experience, and if you want to understand the criminal mind, you must go directly to the source and learn to decipher what he tells you. And, above all: Why + How = Who.
 

So what I truly believe is that along with more money and police and prisons, what we most need more of is love. This is not being simplistic; it’s at the very heart of the issue.

Colleen

4.5 Stars
 
Mindhunter is a must read for any True Crime fans. Most True Crime books focus on a particular crime or killer – which does make for some interesting reads. But Mindhunter provides a fascinating inside look at how the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit was formed as told by one of its founding members. It tells the story of how criminal profiling was developed as well as exploring some of the cases it was based on.
 
*Note: If you are watching the tv series, expect some differences from true events. The killers and the crimes they committed are mostly accurate, but the personal lives of the agents in the show differ greatly from the real agents.
 
The book does skip around a lot. The beginning, in particular, has a lot of “I’ll come back to that later.” To be fair though, it does circle around to everything. It isn’t something that can be told in a strictly linear fashion. Cases could go on for months or even years. The development of the program took years. So yes, there are a lot of different aspects woven together. Just stick with it, and everything will tie in.
 
I will also mention that this is a book about serial killers, so yes, it does contain graphic descriptions. You can’t understand the depths of the violence or depravity if you gloss over just how sadistic some of these people were. But I never felt that the violence was gratuitous. Douglas mentions that you can’t understand these killers if you don’t examine what they did.
 
Mindhunter examines different perspectives and the evolution of the processes surrounding profiling. I really enjoyed that the book combined the history of how criminal profiling was developed, details of individual cases and killer, and the legal proceedings. It was jolting to think about a time when this stuff was new and controversial. I’ve read a lot of True Crime and watched many crime procedural shows. It seems obvious now to have criminal profiling and psychologists as expert witnesses, but of course there was a time when that was not commonplace. I could feel Douglas’ frustration at not being allowed to testify in court because his field wasn’t even recognized as legitimate back then. That’s crazy to think about. The work he and his team were doing really was revolutionary and ground-breaking!
 
I really loved exploring the different lines of thought that were involved in. When Douglas and his associates started this project, they had almost nothing to go on. In the 1970’s, the U.S. was seeing a big uptick in violent, repeated murders, and they had no guidelines for how to handle them. This was before ViCAP, before the Hare Psychopath Checklist, before the internet, before many of the technological advances that we now take for granted, and obviously before the ideas that the BSU would develop concerning criminal profiling. Psychologists’ involvement was almost entirely focused on analyzing killers after the fact. Douglas and his team asked questions such as: What types of murderers are there, and what motivates them? How do catch them quickly? How do prevent these crimes from happening? One of their main goals was to make their profiling process easy for law enforcement agencies to understand and use. Psychology was viewed as highbrow hooey by a lot of people and not something many saw as useful for apprehending criminals. So they had to compile data, identify patterns, create profiling guidelines, make everything relevant to what officers needed, and make sure that all of those processes would hold up in a court of law. The things that this team accomplished were truly groundbreaking and inspiring. They literally wrote the book on this stuff.
 
Douglas brings up a variety of cases. They were compelling, and I thought it was a good selection to show a variety of different types of killers (organized vs. disorganized, mission oriented, sadist, etc.). After leading the field for dozens of years and consulting on hundreds of cases, he certainly had plenty of cases to pick from.
 
Some people accuse the author of being egotistical. Personally, I didn’t see it that way. He may not have a people-pleaser personality (and he admits that), but he is undeniably an expert in his field. He brings up high profile cases because he worked on those cases and/or interviewed the killers afterward. He brings up those cases because of their relevance to the subject matter, not because he’s bragging or name-dropping. And Douglas goes out of his way to give a lot of credit to other agents and law enforcement. He states repeatedly that his job was to provide psychological profiles to help police catch killers and to train them to use those techniques. He flat out says that he didn’t catch them; he just helped provide some of the tools to do so. The only people he bashes are some psychologists who didn’t have any experience in criminal psychology yet tried to give opinions on murders’ ability to rehabilitate. And I definitely sympathized with his frustration over a case where an outside psychologist recommended a murderer for parole based only on some interviews and admitted to never even opening the man’s file or being aware of the brutality of the murders. The psychologist claimed he didn’t want to unfairly judge a person by past actions, so he refused to look at the case file at all – which may sound nice, but it’s incredibly naïve and ignorant. A true psychopath cannot be rehabilitated and being oblivious to a person’s crimes is a dangerous gambit.
 
It was interesting to hear about how during profiling he tried to see things from both the killers’ and victims’ points of view in order to understand cause and effect. Not surprisingly, spending so much time in the heads of such twisted people took a personal toll on him. He was very honest about how difficult that made it to have normal, healthy relationships. And how could it not? How could anyone look at the worst of humanity and not be affected by that?
 
The one thing that annoyed me about the book is that the writing switched tenses. The clinical sections were in past tense. But when he wrote the more action-oriented scenes, he switched to present tense which felt inorganic and weird. He was writing about those events decades after the fact; why would it be written in present tense? It’s just something that irks me; the book is great overall.
 
He does have strong views about and is very vocal concerning capital punishment and rehabilitation. The ending is much pushier than the rest of the book. Not to the point of being off-putting though. It’s understandable that someone working in that field would have strong opinions on those issues.
 
This book is written in an easy to read and easy to understand way. It provides great information about how profiling was developed as well as looking at some fascinating cases. It’s quite the page-turner. As I mentioned, this is a must read for anyone who loves True Crime!
 
*Note: in the years since this was first published, there were major updates on some of the open cases mentioned within – particularly the Green River killer and BTK. Some later additions include that information. But you may want to do additional reading on those cases in you’re interested.
 

RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 5 Stars
Writing Style: 4 Stars
Level of Captivation: 5 Stars
Attention to Details: 5 Stars
Emotional Level: 5 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 4 Stars

Don’t read if you’re suffering depression, suicidal thoughts, and/or anxiety. It’s was a difficult read for me that it took me more than three years.

What I find surprising though is the learnings. Some people may think it’s a very socialist idea in which the author suggested that the solution to these crimes are not more police or prison. But empathy and a nurturing environment to kids from their family, friends and neighbors.

Nate

Don’t read if you’re suffering depression, suicidal thoughts, and/or anxiety. It’s was a difficult read for me that it took me more than three years.

What I find surprising though is the learnings. Some people may think it’s a very socialist idea in which the author suggested that the solution to these crimes are not more police or prison. But empathy and a nurturing environment to kids from their family, friends and neighbors.

alicia

One of my favorite books of 2021 - engaging, educational, suspenseful, an overall insightful deep dive into the psychology and history of serial killers. 

Madhuri Sridhara

4.5- The original profiler, the muse of most of my beloved TV shows, the man with the brains. And he knows it. 

The book was great: well written, informative and a page turner. This guy is great at what he does. The only hitch was his blatant cockiness in the first few chapters where it was more about his life than about any cases. But once you get into the cases, the ride gets crazy.

John Douglas and his team have achieved extraordinary things and in behavioural science/criminology. And this book is a must read for all fans of crime.

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. Now, 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.

Trula Rockwell

Read during college for an elective course on criminal profiling. I very much enjoyed the book seeing as I love criminal minds. This really delved deep into the history of the BAU though the course itself didn't center as much on actually learning to profile as I had hoped.

Allison Francis

Jimena Vázquez Oliver

John Douglas seems to be a great FBI agent/profiler but kind of a shitty person and I guess that’s just how life works.

I imagine the high of BTK and Gary Ridgeway being caught after this book came out to be similar amongst true crime fans as the high when the Golden State Killer was caught after Michelle McNamara’s I’LL BE GONE IN THE DARK and honestly I love that for us.

I will say that I listened to what ended up being an abridged version of the audio book. What I did listen to was pretty fantastic. Three stars because I'm wondering where all of the cutting happened.

Loredana

Denisa C. Logojan 

Absolutely phenomenal. Couldn't get enough of it.

Ciska van Bokhorst

Interessant, maar viel toch tegen. Ik verwachtte een kijkje in de keuken van de BAU van de FBI, dat kreeg ik soms. Verder was het een boek vol herhalingen en een onlogische opbouw. En veel over Dhr Douglas zelf... iets teveel zelfs naar mijn mening. De serie zie ik er ook in terug en geloof het of niet, die vind ik veel beter!

Lauren

A good read for learning about early approaches to criminal profiling, and the origins of this, however is best read if accompanied by other reads about the field.

The overall purpose of the book comes across as rather self indulgent, and this consequent bias reads quite evidently in over-exaggerating the overall contributions Douglas' work has made to the field. Simultaneously, the field of Psychology and its contributions are minimized and somewhat criticized as being unreliable, which in itself is a result of the author's bias to his own work.

Nevertheless, 'Mindhunter' is an enlightening read for an introduction to 'notorious' serial killers and offenders, and Douglas retells the process that lead to identifying the UNSUB rather well, as well as detailing his own profiling perspective and his reasoning for this.

It's a worthwhile read if you're interested in the early days of criminal profiling, but definitely should be read taking the author bias into account.

Mindhunter Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit

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