John E. Douglas

In The Killer's Shadow, John Douglas, one of the first full-time profilers to work for the FBI, recounts his role in helping to capture a serial killer who went on a racism-fuelled killing spree across the U.S. in the 1970s. Some of the methodological information is interesting, if not always for the reasons that Douglas thinks—there's quite a bit of back-patting about the success of certain techniques used, even though forensics specialists are increasingly dubious about their utility. show more (At one point Douglas mentions a case where, if his characterisation here is correct, someone was jailed for murder on the strength of a criminal profile and bitemark analysis—and that's not a standard of evidence I'm comfortable with!)

Douglas does tie what we can learn from the actions of this killer to more contemporary events linked to white supremacism, such as the Charlottesville march or the Charleston church shooting, but doesn't push his analysis far enough. At one point he seems to suggest that if the killer hadn't been blinded in one eye as a child he would have joined the local police force—and thus, it's implied, never become an avowed Nazi. I mean, maybe? But from everything I've observed about the behaviour of U.S. police over the last few years, I'm not sure that logic holds. He might just have felt free to terrorise Black and Jewish people from a position of authority. show less

The Killer Across the Table is written by retired FBI Special Agent and Criminal Profiler John E. Douglas and narrated by Jonathan Groff. During his distinguished career, John Douglas interviewed a slew of serial killers including: Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Charles Manson, and began trying to understand their motives. In working out what made them tick, how they selected their victims, what their childhood and upbringing was like and what drove them to commit such heinous offences, show more Douglas became one of the first criminal profilers.

John E. Douglas is a figure of great renown in the world of true crime and his work has even crossed the divide to entertainment on the big screen. Douglas inspired two characters from one of my favourite TV shows Criminal Minds (namely Jason Gideon and David Rossi) and it was Rossi I had in mind as I was listening to this. Douglas is also the inspiration for the main character in Mindhunter, another terrific FBI profiling show set in the US. Given his notoriety, I guess it's hard for the author to remain humble and the struggle is evident. You could argue his cockiness is hard earned and well deserved but his arrogance occasionally took me out of the cases I was learning about.

And then there was that gushing interview at the end of the audiobook. The narrator Johnathan Groff interviews Douglas at the end of the book, and it's the first time the two have ever spoken together. I found this very strange. Why wouldn't an author want to interact with the person selected to narrate their book? Wouldn't it assist in the creative process and make for a better end result? Nevertheless, the interview is 16 mins of Groff gushing and 'fan-girling' with glowing praise for Douglas that was enough to make me simultaneously roll my eyes and gag. As a reader, I dearly wish they'd had that conversation in private and then recorded Groff interviewing Douglas about the book!

The author's accomplishments speak volumes and his work no doubt laid the foundations of criminal profiling as we know it today. I'm sure his pioneering work with serial killers has gone on to save the lives of many potential victims. So why begrudge him a few bragging rights? Perhaps because the subject matter is so serious that when we glimpse his own sense of self-importance, it sours the experience. It's hard to maintain the admiration in the face of such pride and arrogance.

And where was the editor in this excerpt?
"If they had, his name would have almost certainly stood out. Not because of anything having to do with his purchase of a motorcycle.... But because Todd Kohlhepp was a registered sex offender and that should have aroused enough interest at least to bring him in for an interview." Chapter 22

Surely, if you're writing about heinous crimes and paedophiles, you'd avoid using the word arouse in the same sentence. Wouldn't you? This lack of attention to detail and indulgence shown to the author somewhat lessened my enjoyment of his book.

The Killer Across the Table covers four cases: Joseph McGowan, Joseph Kondro, Donald Harvey and Todd Kohlhepp and thankfully takes great pains to ensure no glorification whatsoever of the crimes or the perpetrators. Victims are treated with respect and reverence as the cases are broken down by Douglas. It was frightening how ordinary these men were - one a high school teacher, another was a hospital orderly - yet their ability to fit in to society in order to continue carrying out their crimes was the stuff of nightmares.

The Killer Across the Table by John E. Douglas is recommended for true crime readers and those with an interest in psychology, criminal psychology, profiling and criminal profiling. show less

If you miss when Criminal Minds was good, then this book will really scratch that itch. I found it really interesting the way that they approached the interviews, to come at them with a very neutral approach to get the killers to talk openly. It shows a lot of self restraint and clearly seems taxing on them, but ultimately very valuable in terms of research knowledge gained. I liked seeing the "behind the scenes" of what they did try try and get killers to open up, how Douglas decided when show more to push against their claims or go along with them even though he knew they were lies. While I don't agree with his theory that "all killers have some kind of mental illness because no sane person would do this", I still think he has a lot of good insights. Jonathan Groff does a great job in narrating the book. He reads with a calm and steady voice in such a way that you can imagine the matter-of-fact tone the interviewers would have had with the killers, but it's still very engaging and pleasant to listen to.  show less

Okay, so the last book I read about true crime was like "sometimes reality is worse than fiction" and then didn't really deliver any fucked up crimes to prove that point. This book however? Jesus. Fucking. Christ. I consume A LOT of trume crime, I've watched a lot of seasons of Criminal Minds and so on, but there were things in this book where I had to take a moment and just stare out the bus window before I could continue reading. I mean ... the guy with the teeth. I will never get over show more that.

So, yeah, if you're into true crime and murder, you are going to enjoy this book. I even like the personal stories, I don't know how many people I retold the story of the failed (but not really) proposal because it's pretty hilarious. Sometimes I think it's a bit too much "he he he we're such a bunch of goofy pranksters" but you need some lightness in the book too.

I completely disagree on the death penalty though, and this book is pretty pro-death penalty in the case of really evil people. I agree that they're horrible people and I don't mourn them for a second, but a democracy cannot have the death penalty and still be a democracy. Just ... insert that Gandalf quote here I guess. But that opinion was not presented in a way that made me dislike the book and given what the author must've seen in his life, I definitely see why you'd think that. But I do not agree.

Oh, and when I picked it up I had no idea it was released like 20 years ago. It was so weird reading about how we don't know who BTK is, but obv there was a time we didn't (hell, until very recently we didn't know how the Golden State Killer was either). But you quickly adjusted to how "old" the book was, so no problem.

Next up: Mindhunter the TV series! show less