The Monsters We Make: Murder, Obsession, and the Rise of Criminal Profiling

by Rachel Corbett

A riveting work of true crime that tells the strange story of criminal profiling from Victorian times to our own.

Criminal profiling—the delicate art of collecting and deciphering the psychological “fingerprints” of the monsters among us—holds an almost mythological status in pop culture. But what exactly is it, does it work, and why is the American public so entranced by it? What do we gain, and endanger, from studying why people commit murder? In The Monsters We Make, author Rachel Corbett explores how criminal profiling became one of society’s most seductive and quixotic undertakings through five significant moments in its history.

Corbett follows Arthur Conan Doyle through the London alleyways where Jack the Ripper butchered his victims, depicts the tailgate outside of Ted Bundy’s execution, and visits the remote Montana cabin where Ted Kaczynski assembled his antiestablishment bombs. Along the way emerge the people who studied and unraveled these cases. We meet self-taught psychologist Henry Murray, who profiled Adolf Hitler at the request of the U.S. government and later profiled his own students—including the future Unabomber—by subjecting them to cruel humiliation experiments. We also meet the prominent Yale psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis, who ended up testifying that Bundy was too sick to stand trial. Finally, Corbett takes the story into our own time, explaining the rise of modern “predictive policing” policies through a study of one Florida family that the analytics targeted—to devastating effects.

With narrative intrigue and deft research, Corbett delves deep into the mythology and reality of criminal profilers, revealing how thin the line can be separating those who do harm and those who claim to stop it.

“Corbett [is] a gifted storyteller … A highly readable, endlessly revealing primer on the homicidal mind.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History, Crime, Psychology, Audiobook, Adult

6 pages, Audible Audio

First published October 14, 2025

About the author

Rachel Corbett is the author of "The Monsters We Make" and "You Must Change Your Life," which won the 2016 Marfield Prize, the National Award for Art Writing. She is a features writer at New York Magazine and has previously written for the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and other publications. She lives in New York.

Reviews

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Criminal profiling: what's it good for? Rachel Corbett takes a stab at it (I'll see myself out) and comes away with a book that is an easy read, informative, but also a little light.

Corbett starts off by talking about a personal situation which led her down the path of crime investigating. What follows is mostly vignettes on various type of profiling including Jack the Ripper, Hitler, and the Unabomber. Along the way, Corbett muses about whether profiling is the powerful tool to crime solving that is often presented or just a few steps above fortune telling.

The book is highly readable. I flew through it, and if you are unsure about the genre of true crime, this is a wonderful primer. For true crime junkies, you might be left wanting more. These vignettes are very high level and I finished with a lot of questions I would have wanted answered. The last couple chapters ask some very large questions about current police tactics without in-depth analysis. Ironically, it is Corbett's skillful writing which left me wanting to hear much more. Either way, you will like what is here, and this may be a gateway to other books on the subjects she brings up.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by NetGalley and W. W. Norton and Company.)

[Krystelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

This was a fascinating look into the world of criminal profiling and how it has evolved through time. We start with a study of some of the trappings of psychology and the case of Jack The Ripper. This slowly meanders through to Sherlock Holmes and the concept of looking at someone to understand their propensity for crime or violence, until we move closer to the modern era.

All the case files in this book are well researched, although perhaps not as well expanded as they could have been. The real talent of the author lies in the way that all the cases are connected and flow into each other- it makes for really compulsive reading.

The way that we get a personal connection and an explanation of true crime and why we have such a fixation with it was also really good, and it made it clear what the intention of the book was. Most importantly I learnt some bits and pieces that I wasn’t aware of before, which I always see as the most important thing in a non-fiction book.

[Erin Clemence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.

Expected publication date: Oct. 14, 2025

“The Monsters We Make: Murder, Obsession, and the Rise of Criminal Profiling” is a non-fiction true crime novel by Rachel Corbett that examines how law enforcement has used criminal profiling in six prolific murder cases. From Jack the Ripper, when policing itself was in its infancy, to a profiler’s perspective on Adolf Hitler to the Teds (Bundy and Kaczynski), Corbett expands on the use of criminal profiling and how it was used in each case.

Corbett has a fascinating personal history that she discusses in the introduction, which is how she ended up focusing her work on serial murderers. Her biological father is in jail and, when she was younger, a family friend was arrested and jailed for allegedly murdering his ex-girlfriend. It is no wonder that Corbett is intrigued by the criminal mind, and she writes a captivating book about the most appealing part (to me, anyway) of police investigation- criminal profiling. Each section takes on a prolific crime in history and, although many of these grisly murders are infamous, Corbett managed to provide some relatively unknown information from each case that caught my interest.

Through each case, Corbett gives the basic details of the crime itself and then delves into the profiling aspect, whether it was done by police or by members of the community. In Jack the Rippers case, Corbett examines how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle profiled the serial killer, looking at it from the perspective of Doyle’s literary hero, Sherlock Holmes.

Corbett doesn’t ignore the negative aspects of criminal profiling, either, particularly how profiling in general led to the arrest of many young people in Florida, simply for where they lived, who they hung around with, or what race they identified with. It is obvious to see how some in the police force could use profiling to their advantage, but, for the most part, it serves a purpose in discovering the details of a particular suspect.

Criminal Minds is one of the most streamed shows on television, and if you’ve seen it, it’s easy to understand why. Criminal profiling, identifying a suspect description and personality based on a variety of factors, including the crime scene, is a fascinating aspect of policing (for me, anyway). As sorry as I am for Corbett’s emotional and heartbreaking upbringing, I am grateful for her well-researched and well-written true-crime book, “The Monsters We Make”.

[Hunter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Based on both the description and the introduction, I thought this book was going to be a deep-dive into what criminal profiling is, how it works, how it often does not work, and why it has so much appeal in pop culture. What this book actually is is what you could describe as five case studies of criminal profiling starting with Jack the Ripper and going through the 2010s.

There were a lot of points where way more detail was given on a topic that was only tangentially related (such as the personal life of a psychologist who worked on understanding personality) than felt justified in a book that is less than 300 pages, and there were many other points where something that felt much more relevant to the topic of the book (such as the studies debunking a lot of the science behind criminal profiling) were only mentioned in passing.

On the whole, this book took a really interesting topic and failed to do it justice and took a very interesting angle (the author's personal connection to violent crime and her resulting interest in the motivations behind it) and kept it almost entirely in a brief introduction.

[Susy · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75 stars
Not sure how I feel about this one. It started off strong and was interesting enough but it did lose my interest a bit in the second half. And 2 days later almost nothing seems to have stuck with me...

Topic 7
Writing Style 6
Execution 5
Pace 5
Setup 5
Enjoyment/Engrossment 5
Narration 7

[Esha MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick read for anyone interested in the behavioral science of criminal profiling and learning how media and authors have influence and assisted in some of the worlds most prolific serial killer cases.

Perfect for any true crime buff!

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐

[Gillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short history and current-day assessment of criminal profiling that separates fact from myth, told through some of True Crime's most well-known (but misunderstood) case studies. A must for anyone interested in True Crime or the risks posed by predictive policing. Even if you're interested in neither, this will make you more media literate. This will stay with me for a long time.

[Amy Andrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice little companion piece for anyone as obsessed with the Mindhunter series as I was, but it's certainly not a deep dive into the subject. More of a greatest hits of profiling history. Enjoyable but light.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded down.

This book covers five case studies in criminal profiling, from Jack the Ripper to the Unabomber, and I found it both interesting and well-researched. I appreciated that the author shared her own experiences at the start and explained what drew her to the topic. The story about her mother’s ex-boyfriend actually reminded me of something that happened in my own family. I’ve always been more curious about why criminals commit crimes than about the details of what they did, and that’s the main focus of this book. Overall, I found it interesting, but the narrative's jumping around within each chapter sometimes confused me. One example of this was in the chapter about the Unabomber; she talks about how his brother and his wife turned in some of his papers to the authorities, which led them to catch him. Then it jumped into one of the criminal profilers on the case and his experience, and I was left wondering what happened when they caught him, which was explored several paragraphs later. The flow of thought just felt a bit jarring and confusing at times.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review of several well-known cases and a couple of new-to-me cases. The links to criminal profiling were different in most of the stories, often just brief discussion of what I think of as "criminal profiling" - which is an FBI expert giving the age, race, marital status, living conditions, and habits of the perpetrator. Most people who read and watch true crime know that this has been largely discredited, but there are other aspects of criminal profiling (now called behavior analysis), such as analysis of word use in writing samples, that have actually helped solve crimes. I didn't get a lot of new information here, but it was a quick and interesting read.

[tilda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okeiiii öööö. Mulle jäi ihan täysin auki, että mikä tän kirjan pointti oli. Tää oli sekava ja kaikkiin aiheisiin paneuduttiin tosi pintapuolisesti. Kirjan aiheeseen vähääkään perehtyneelle tuskin tarjoaa mitään uutta tai mullistavaa

[Ines Locker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is much more than a typical true crime book. It is more literary than a paperback thriller and more thrilling than a historical or academic text. It is both intellectually complex and a great read. The chapters are loosely linked stories that move chronologically through time. The last one is an absolute heartbreaker. Some of them are about figures you've heard of before (i.e. Ted Bundy) but there are many new insights and by putting them in the context of profiling it made me rethink what I thought I knew about these pop cultural tales. The author considers profiling from a broad lens and lets readers come to their own conclusions about the stories she presents, which I appreciated.

[Angela Messaglia · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I almost let the hold lapse on this one, but quickly became engrossed in the recounting of so many prolific criminals and the Justice system that either shaped them, or was shaped by them.

[Kendra Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75- An interesting audio book and great for people that want to move away from true crime podcasts to true crime books.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was almost an anti-cop banger and I was here for it; she left the most interesting topic for last and ran out of steam.

[Mary Thompson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is just a series of anecdotes with no coherent thread and no substantive discussion of the science or practice of criminal profiling.

[Saf Salvador · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you w.w. Norton and company for the ARC.

This book started off really strong and couldn't put it down and was very intrigued by her personal experience with someone accused of murder.

The chapter of Jack the ripper was well written and informative from perspective I hadn't heard previously.

Then it starts to get into the waffling stages unfortunately.

Some parts about Murray and his experiments are an interesting read but just after halfway through the book i feel as though it became less informative, less interesting and I felt myself getting bored from the waffling.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't not recommend.

[Helen Frost · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read. There are a mixture of case types examined, from historic and very infamous like Jack the Ripper to the more contemporary and lesser known. At face value this seems like good coverage but it didn’t sit entirely easily with me and felt a little disjointed. Maybe that’s just me. I’m tempted to say I enjoyed and learned more from the lesser knowns as Hitler and Jack the Ripped feel a little over visited and repetitive.
The level of detail is good and there are some interesting insights into the human psyche and what personal background factors can influence and instigate offending but I’m fairly well versed in the area so nothing of great surprise.
Definitely worth a read but not 100% one for me.

[J.R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

In recent years, the public has developed fixed ideas of criminal profiling influenced by books like "The Silence of the Lambs" and popular TV programs like Criminal Minds.
A personal experience with violence led Rachel Corbett, a feature writer at New York magazine, to explore the subject of criminal profiling in the hope of understanding a person she knew and what led him to become a murderer. In this book, she offers a history of the subject from its earliest influences to the present. Her research reveals there's a relation between science and fiction in the subject.
Thomas Bond, one of London's top forensic surgeons and an expert witness for the Crown, drafted the first acknowledged criminal profile on Jack the Ripper. Whether it was accurate is still a matter of opinion. Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, was among the members of a Victorian "crimes club" who were invited to offer insights on the Ripper case in 1888. Their assessment was no more convincing to the public than those of others who claim to have identified Jack over the years.
The efforts of medical science to connect criminality to biology introduced bizarre theories of skull abnormalities (phrenology), physical appearance, racial bias, and other indicators more akin to fiction than science.
Henry Murray, a man with a string of degrees in a variety of subjects but none in psychology, would have the greatest influence in the field of criminal profiling over a period of years and down to the present. Murray founded a field of study he dubbed "personology" and, in 1943, analyzed the mind and motivations of Adolf Hitler at the request of William Donovan, head of the OSS (forerunner of today's CIA). "The groundbreaking exercise in remote profiling paved the way for others to observe and analyze the behavior of subjects they'd never met," Corbett wrote.
It also opened the door for more government-funded experimentation by Murray and his associates, tinkering that had some dangerous consequences. One of Murray's experiments may have been a factor in the future activities of Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber.
Corbett also offers insights into Ted Bundy and other serial killers, as well as forensic specialists like Howard Teten and James R. Fitzgerald, stars of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, in this readable study.
The final chapters are the most frightening in the book, not because they focus on serial killers, but because they demonstrate what dangers profiling holds when taken to the most extreme lengths. The focus is on the harassment some ordinary citizens faced when a Florida county police unit targeted their children as prospective future criminals. The intent of "predictive policing" was to prevent at-risk children from becoming lawbreakers. Instead, it appears to have forced some in that direction.
"Yet for all the obsessing we do over criminals, we rarely consider the minds of the profilers," Corbett warns. "And they, too, have motives, often overlooked."

[Hưởng Trịnh]

## Đăng Ký Jun88: Bí Quyết Cập Nhật Biến Động Tỷ Lệ Kèo Trình Tự Chúng tôi hiểu rằng việc theo dõi tỷ lệ kèo nhà cái Jun88 là một phần quan trọng trong chiến lược đặt cược của bất kỳ người chơi nào. Tại đây, chúng tôi sẽ cung cấp cho bạn những bí quyết để cập nhật biến động tỷ lệ kèo và nâng cao cơ hội chiến thắng của bạn. Hãy cùng chúng tôi khám phá những cách thức để nắm bắt thông tin này và giành chiến thắng!## Vì Sao Phân Tích Biến Động Tỷ Lệ Kèo From Nhà Cái Jun88 Là Yếu Tố Quyết Định? Phân tích biến động tỷ lệ kèo không chỉ là việc nhìn vào những con số lên xuống. Đó là quá trình giải mã thông tin ẩn chứa, từ những tin tức nội bộ đội bóng đến sự thay đổi tâm lý thị trường. Chúng tôi nhận thấy rằng việc hiểu rõ nguyên nhân đằng sau mỗi sự thay đổi sẽ mang lại lợi thế lớn cho người chơi.## Nhận Diện "Dòng Tiền Thông Minh" Biến động kèo thường phản ánh sự dịch chuyển của "dòng tiền thông minh" từ các nhà đầu tư lớn. Khi một lượng lớn tiền được đổ vào một cửa nhất định, đăng ký Jun88 có xu hướng điều chỉnh kèo để cân bằng lợi nhuận. Chúng tôi khuyến nghị bạn nên chú ý những thay đổi mạnh và đột ngột, vì đó có thể là dấu hiệu từ các thông tin nội bộ mà ít người biết đến.## Phát Hiện Giá Trị Kèo Bị Đánh Giá Thấp Đôi khi, nhà cái có thể đánh giá sai sức mạnh của một đội hoặc có thông tin chậm trễ. Bằng cách theo dõi sát sao sự biến động, bạn có thể phát hiện những kèo có giá trị (value bets) – nơi tỷ lệ cược cao hơn khả năng thực tế của sự kiện. Đây chính là cơ hội vàng để bạn thu về lợi nhuận đáng kể.## Các Yếu Tố Tác Động Đến Sự Biến Động Tỷ Lệ Kèo From Jun88 Để phân tích biến động tỷ lệ kèo from Jun88 một cách hiệu quả, việc hiểu rõ các yếu tố tác động là điều tối quan trọng. Từ kinh nghiệm của chúng tôi, có nhiều yếu tố khách quan và chủ quan ảnh hưởng trực tiếp đến những con số này.## Thông Tin Đội Hình Và Phong Độ Mỗi thay đổi về nhân sự như chấn thương trụ cột, án treo giò hay sự trở lại của cầu thủ chủ chốt đều có thể khiến tỷ lệ kèo thay đổi chóng mặt. Tương tự, phong độ gần đây của các đội bóng cũng là yếu tố then chốt. Một chuỗi trận thắng ấn tượng hay những kết quả bết bát đều được nhà cái cân nhắc kỹ lưỡng trước khi đưa ra tỷ lệ kèo cuối cùng.## Tin Tức Ngoài Lề Và Yếu Tố Sân Bãi Không chỉ dừng lại ở yếu tố chuyên môn, các tin tức ngoài lề như mâu thuẫn nội bộ, áp lực từ truyền thông hay thậm chí điều kiện thời tiết cũng có thể ảnh hưởng đến tâm lý và phong độ thi đấu. Yếu tố sân nhà, sân khách cũng là một cân nhắc không thể bỏ qua, nơi mà sự ủng hộ của khán giả có thể tạo nên lợi thế lớn.

[Bill reilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rachel Corbett seemed destined to write true crime as her mother's ex-boyfriend killed another girlfriend and then completed the murder-suicide with a gunshot to the head. She was only seven at the time of the incident. In Cold Blood, The Executioner's Song and A Shot in the Heart were some of her early reads. All three are excellent books.
She follows up with a chapter on Jack the Ripper and Arthur Conan Doyle's unsuccessful attempt at solving the still unsolved mystery. Doyle created the Sherlock Holmes character and was fascinated by murder.
The formation of the OSS and the MKULTRA program and their experiments at mind control take up the next chapter and much of the material was shredded and therefore we get no answers.
A psychiatrist, Dorothy Lewis, had analyzed Ted Bundy and diagnosed him with bipolar disorder. The shrinks testifying for the state of Florida disagreed and he was executed in 1989. Dr. Lewis believed that Ted suffered abuse at the hands of his grandfather, Sam Cowell.
Ted Kaczynski was the subject of mind control experiments at Harvard where the project leaders used humiliation to break down the will of the student volunteers. After the Unabomber was sent to trial, his lawyers were unable to access the files from the university. Ted's brother David believed that the program contributed to the man's mental breakdown.
As Patriot Act laws eased surveillance restrictions, various states have increased the use of preemptive arrests of those with criminal records. Pasco County in Florida is used as an example of overzealous law enforcement. The warnings of Ted Kaczynski are becoming more of a reality everyday. Palintir and a future of digital IDs and a cashless society are inevitable. The author should have added that point in her final chapter.

[Pippa Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A readable jog through the origins of criminal profiling up to the modern day, with examples from the 21st century of profiling being taken too far.
The book starts with the author’s personal experience of contact with a killer, but being completely unaware they had the capacity to kill. This raises the question about what a killer would look like or how might they act so as to spot them… a question that has troubled a lot of people throughout time.
The Victorians thought they had the answer with phrenology (the study of the bumps on the human skull.) A logical idea…albeit wrong. The example of Jack the Ripper is then given, and how Arthur Conan-Doyle was invited (some years later) to use his powers of deduction from fiction writing, to profile Jack. It appears he was hopelessly adrift from the suspect who was most likely to have committed the crimes.
Other cases studies include Ted Bundy and the UNAbomber. Again, each example advances the science of criminal profiling with advances in knowledge as it was known at the time. And therein lies the twist – without wishing to add spoilers – it seems that the advancement of profiling depended on experiments which manipulated the psyche of ‘volunteer’ students…which may have had fatal consequences. (Read the book to find out why!)
And finally, there is a fascinating review of profiling and how it got a bad name. Again, in part this harks back to the early Victorian policing methods of being visible as a way preventing crime. In the 21st century this meant identifying those ‘at risk of offending’ and then intimidating them.
A fascinating, readable book of interest to anyone who enjoys true crime, lay psychology, or the history of crime.

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall disjointed, lacks cohesion, not enough depth and little analysis.

This book had an interesting premise that then failed to deliver. The author had an interesting angle, connection and personal story, and then just....couldnt go anywhere with it. This greatly needed better editing for flow & relevance.

The author seemed to struggle to maintain a clear message, and the book would meander around, and at the end, was unable to connect meaningfully to the authors personal story.

While I found lots of interesting anecdotal information, I really think this needed a better pass at editing. I also found it frustrating that we spent SO much time on some of the subjects (Jung, Murray), without touching upon the lack of scientific basis for their studies, controversies around their work, but then did a great job at explaining the negative application of criminal profiling. A relatively small section was spent refuting & mentioning the issues around early criminal profilingg are only mentioned in passing.

[Cheyanne Davison · Rating 2 out of 5]

I looked forward to delving in to the history or criminal profiling and how it has affected the catching of murderers and criminals today. The history of how mystery authors affected police forces and finding criminals for good and for bad i found very interesting and was a very good introduction to this book. However, majority of this book focussed on Henry Murray and his life (which a lot of did not seem very applicable to the subject) and how he affected criminal profiling or basically created certain criminals. In addition, when mentioning other research or individuals the author would share random facts like that the person has hairless cats…. That seemed very random and unimportant to me. Maybe someone else can find the importance in it. You don’t get to the real grit of the rise of criminal profiling until halfway in and only in relation to very well known cases related to Murray. The last chapter discussed the negative affects of profiling in one specific county.

[Ella Droste · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating mix of true crime history and psychology, with a little bit of that “pop culture myth vs reality” energy. I liked how it pulled together some huge names, like Jack the Ripper, Bundy, the Unabomber, but also sprinkled in lesser-known bits that gave it more texture. Honestly, the writing is super approachable, and I kind of flew through it.

That said, it did feel a little patchwork at times, like hopping from one case to the next without always digging as deep as I wanted. Still, it definitely left me thinking about how we romanticize profiling and how messy it actually is in practice.

If you’re into true crime but don’t want something too dense, this is a solid pick. Just maybe don’t expect every question to get answered.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

[Sherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. I must state upfront that I DNF this book very early on after realizing I was not the intended audience for it.

The book is described as a “riveting work of true crime“ and, while it absolutely did delve into real life cases (Jack the Ripper, etc.), it read more like a textbook that I would have read when I was working on my Masters degree in criminal justice. Based on the description, I was expecting more about criminal profiling and a deeper analysis of the mind of a serial killer.

I did enjoy the Introduction in which we learn about a real life case, however, after that, it became dry and clinical for my taste.

Overall, this book was not for me, but I do think that there are readers who would very much be interested in the subject.

[Leah Deckard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Coming from a forensics major I was really excited to read this book, however it just didn't work out for me. I wouldn't necessarily say the book is about criminal profiling, and I guess that's where I was kind of misled. I definitely did not want to pick the book back up after the first 2 chapters, but the last couple chapters kind of made up for the beginning. It kind of seemed like a hodge podge of a variety of true crime related topics, and I overall just didn't like the flow of the book. I was very interested in the personal story she mentioned in the introduction, and would have loved to hear more about that case.

Thank you to Netgalley, W.W. Norton Company and Rachel Corbett for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

[caroline gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

This was a super interesting set of stories that all contributed to the modern concept of criminal profiling. The author included some of the most well-known cases in history, but also some lesser known cases are are equally as significant to current police tactics. I also appreciated her inclusion of personal cases. It made her interest in the subject all the more interesting to the reader.

I did find that some of the cases seemed slightly disconnected and perhaps could have been approached differently, but overall it was a fascinating read!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.