Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit

Great story about Profiler John Douglas. You will be captivated by his story. Hard to put the book down!!

Douglas is a great author and I would highly recommend his books to everyone!

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

Love this book and the updated prologue.

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.

Well written by real people dealing with very horrific crimes.

Buen libro

Such an interesting read, a bit grim, as you'd expect, but a great insight to the approach taken by profilers

Adapted into a recent Netflix series of the same name, Mindhunter is a fascinating journey into criminal nightmares.

Ainda não o acabei, mas é de leitura viciante!Recomendo imenso para quem gosta de saber mais sobre o trabalho do FBI relativamente a serial killers.