Criminal Shadows : Unlocking the Minds of Serial Killers and Sexual Predators-and Cracking Cases

by David Canter

What does a criminal reveal about himself by the way he commits a crime? A criminal may divulge what shoes he wore from his footprints. His blood type can be determined by any body fluids left at the scene. But he leaves more at the crime scene than these material traces. He also leaves psychological traces, telltale patterns of behavior that indicated the sort of person he is. These traces are more ambiguous and subtle than those examined by the biologist or physicist... They are more like shadows... Yet if they can be interpreted, criminals' shadows can indicate where investigators should look and what sort of a person they should look for.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Professor of Psychology, university of Huddersfield.

David Victor Canter (born 5 January 1944) is a psychologist. He began his career as an architectural psychologist studying the interactions between people and buildings, publishing and providing consultancy on the designs of offices, schools, prisons, housing and other building forms as well as exploring how people made sense of the large scale environment, notably cities. He set up the Journal of Environmental Psychology in 1980. His work in architecture led to studies of human reactions in fires and other emergencies. He pioneered Investigative Psychology in Britain. He helped police in 1985 on the Railway Rapist case. He was the Professor of Psychology at the University of Surrey for ten years, where he developed Investigative Psychology described in detail in Investigative Psychology: Offender Profiling and the Analysis of Criminal Action and a course curriculum. He was Director of the Centre For Investigative Psychology which is based at the University of Liverpool. Since 2009 he has been at the University of Huddersfield. At Liverpool University Canter developed the MSc programme in Investigative Psychology which he directed until 2007. He no longer directs this programme which has consequently changed to reflect the wider arena of Forensic Psychology and a more balanced view of the field. He is the founder and director of the International Academy for Investigative Psychology, a professional academy for researchers seeking to apply social science to investigative and legal processes.

Reviews

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dr. Cantor is there a particular reason, you made certain that the majority of the crimes profiled in this book involve violence by black males against primarily white women? Surely there is more crime in Britain than that. I'm of the opinion that this book is less about violent crime than about the successes of racial profiling.

Cantor's style is typical dry British and only really picks up when describing the actual violence and crime scenes. I think I learned more in 20 pages of any John Douglas book I've read (though I have serious reservations about him as well). The Afterword sounds far to much like blowing one's horn and I was actually very uncomfortable reading it.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for my dissertation, so I needed the information. But this kept my interest and wasn’t a boring read, in fact it was quite the opposite! It was a really informative book that was easy to follow and super interesting! One of the best books i’ve read for my research.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting study of violent offenders. It is ssomewhat difficult to understand because the cases are set in England. Moreover, the author's efforts to classify serial killers and rapists using narratives was confusing.

[Molly]

Interesting read