Profilers: Leading Investigators Take You Inside The Criminal Mind

by John H. Campbell, Don DeNevi

In this compilation of expert articles internationally recognized homicide investigators, most of them pioneers in developing the science and the art of profiling, share their insights gained from years of experience tracking the perpetrators of some of the most notorious crimes.Among the subjects discussed with hostage situations,child abduction and murder in the David Meirhofer case,interviewing Jeffrey Dahmer,autoerotic murder,the challenges of creating psychological profiles,the use of forensic linguistics to track the Unabomber,assaultative eye injury ("enucleation"), andgeographic profiling.A must for readers of true crime, forensic investigations, and murder mysteries, this unique collection of revealing articles offers a chilling and unparalleled glimpse into the workings of the criminal mind.

Genres: Crime, Nonfiction, True Crime, Psychology, Science, Writing

377 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2004

Reviews

[Terrance · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides excellent insight into how FBI agents conduct criminal investigations agaist serial killers. Goes over different methods of profiling serial killers, disorganized organized, as well as providing an overview of the psychological aspects of the criminal's mind. It also described methods of catching several serial killers, such as the unabomber. A very insightful book that isn't difficult to read.

[Dan Stern · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read lots of material on profilers - one of my favorite subjects. Most of the books are, to one degree or another, an homage to the profiler's ego and everyone contradicts everyone else. (Just read the other reviews.) I've found this to be true even for textbooks. There's always lots about who did what first and did it better. Very unprofessional in my humble opinion. I think the reviews I read here gave me the inspiration to try "Profilers". This is truly a wonderful and fun, yes fun, book to read. If you're into this sort of thing you'll know what I mean. It's definitely a beginners guide to profiling but I think even the mid-level enthusiast or professional would enjoy it. The book is a collection of articles, research papers and the like by many names you will instantly recognize. There are 2 sections to the book, the first made up of older contributions to the field. At first I was a little disappointed with this because I wanted the newest, most up to date material there was. I read those articles anyway and was really glad I did. I think knowing how it all started, how the first profilers worked and who the players were did a lot to add to my foundation. The 2nd section contains the newer material and does not disappoint. Since the articles are by many different people on many different topics you keep getting fresh perspectives. You don't have to read the book in order. I skipped to whatever chapter looked appealing at the moment and didn't feel it hurt the experience. Best of all, no ego trips to slog through.

This is a terrific read, especially for the beginner to the field. You will learn about profiles of all types, homicide, rape, mutilation, sexual homicide, crime scenes, organized vs. disorganized murderers, interviewing, linguistics, enucleation, cold cases, geographic profiling, child abductors, psychopaths, sadists, basic terminology and much, much more. All this is written in an easy, relaxed style that I think anyone who has an interest in forensics will enjoy.

The only thing that bugged me was the fact that they used a good bit of material from the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletins which are available online for free. Also, there was definitely a good bit of repetition of material. I still enjoyed the book so much I can't take away any points for those small issues.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is more like a compilation of white papers. There is really thorough information, and it reads more like a handbook or a thesis. In fact, most of them are academic papers organized as chapters in a
book. There are numerous authors in the book, and certainly some of them are better writers than others. It's a prolific vocabulary builder, though admittedly, hardly for conversational words (sobriquet, puissant, scopophilia, paraphilia, piquerism, gerontophilia). Some of the papers had messy, editing misses - misspellings of authors' names, words missing, letters missing from words - really easy stuff - which was really bothersome, but oh well. All in all a very informative book. I'm glad I'm done, though. Reading this in public places made me a bit self-conscious with titles like "Sexual Assault of Elderly Women". Not something you want to see someone reading next to you at a café!

[Raven · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a clinical read aka just the facts, which I liked. I did not read this book in the order in which it was presented but rather skipped to the chapters which most peaked my curiosity first. 4.5 stars

[Rosie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these articles were far more interesting and illuminating than the others.

[Khoa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Love how specific each author is with their account. From the smallest details, one can deduct what kind of killer the criminal is.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

I disliked this book. Within the first 25 pages, I found a number og things wrong. A few editing errors, like "A shooting at a shopping mail." when "mail" should have been "mall". The book was put out in 2004, one of the mass murderers was caught in 89, and they said that he was still a federal fugitive. the date was a year off on his mass murder. With the number of wrong information within the first 25 pages, I had a hard time with the credibility of the author/editors. If you're going to put out a book on teaching people about profiling, get your facts straight. I would NOT recommend this book to anyone. i am sure there are much better books out there. Fact check before you put out a book, like this.

[Pamela(AllHoney) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an easy read by any means but very informative.

[A.R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used this book to research my serial killer novel that's still in the works.

[roe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative but there was a lot of repetition in some of the chapters. the repetition made some of the sections get sluggish which didn't make for easy reading.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The personal experiences are interesting.

[Michael Bethany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Numerous typographical and grammatical errors were distracting and impacted the fluidity of the read. However, the content was excellent.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My college professor wrote this book. He’s a brilliant guy and had many stories to tell. We learned a lot about profiling and serial killers by reading this book!