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. ( )

This is a great read for someone interested in the basis for and origin of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. If you are looking for Criminal Minds or Silence of the Lambs, you're out of luck.

John Douglas, with the help of Mark Olshaker, provide tremendous insight into the fascinating task of profiling and targeting the most depraved that humanity has to offer. While this book is not one of fast paced action, it will have you flipping the pages faster and faster to see what is next. Even if your fascination with this topic was forged from viewing Silence of the Lambs, this factual look at these monsters and the FBI’s attempt to capture them should still keep you captivated. ( )

This is a darkly fascinating topic that begins in an era that defined the FBI's own profile for years afterwards. Douglas follows the evolution of the ISU (then known somewhat unfortunately as 'BS') as he and his colleagues learned to meet the challenges presented by its particular types of quarry... how they identified these men, (down to details as seemingly unrelated as the kind of car they would drive), the existence of 'signatures' as opposed to Modus Operandi, and at the root of it all, what compelled these men to act.

The minds described by Douglas are so phenomenally warped as to warrant a branch of law enforcement - a science - simply to keep up. The minds that forced them into the light are simply put, brilliant. The defining concept of 'Mindhunter' is that not only were Douglas and his team catching killers, they were learning from them, ceaselessly, in a bid to be out in front of the next case.

Very readable, although with the proliferation of TV and film coverage of 'Behavioural Science', the reader has to make a conscious effort to appreciate the impact of the freshly discovered insights into the profiling of serial killers and violent, sexually motivated criminals. ( )

If you're a CSI fan, this is the book for you. Enthralling descriptions of horrific crimes; if you've ever doubted some people are simply born evil, this will cure that conviction. A little self-serving (we heard a few too many times how hard he worked and how skeptical people were), but given the results--getting some of these people off the the streets--he's earned the indulgence. ( )

In Mind Hunter, FBI profiler John Douglas describes his career in behavioral science chasing down some of the most brutal and most notorious serial killers of the past several decades.

Perhaps the weakest part of the book is its organization. He jumps around in time from case to case - sometimes in the middle of describing cases, and he references things that he hasn't yet described - or he says the same things over and over. Also he spends quite a bit of time babbling about his childhood dream of being a veterinarian and his time in the Air Force working in education - both of which struck me as self-indulgent. He attempted to link them to his profiling career but the result is pretty strained and uninteresting.

Where Douglas does explain his profiles and the reasoning behind certain elements of them, he truly is fascinating - in those moments, it is easy to see why he served as the model for the profiler in Silence of the Lambs. Unfortunately these moments aren't nearly as prevalent as I had hoped or expected. Generally, Douglas provides us with a brief, horrifying glimpse into the crimes and crime scenes, the personality of victims (at least on occasion), a pronouncement of his profile, and then he goes on to say how spot-on it was. A significant weakness of the book is that Douglas never even once mentions an instant when he was wrong in any material way. I find the implication that in 25 years of work he never made any grave mistakes despite the huge amounts of stress utterly implausible - and the book loses a great deal of intellectual honesty.

Douglas also uses the book as a soapbox to proclaim his views on the death penalty, the ineptitude of therapists and his views on legal culpability. Mentioning his views once or twice I wouldn't have minded, but he harps on them, and he manages to convey outright hostility to anyone who disagrees with him.

I was enjoying the book fairly well, but it is too long and too repetitive. And then the author ruined things for me by ending the book on a note of moral judgment of society. And the last thing I want from my reading is self-righteousness. ( )