The Real Cracker

by Stephen Cook

paperback, fine

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, Psychology

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Pauline B · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hhhhhhhhhhhu.
This first book from a box set I found in a charity shop was really not was I expected.
I expected : terrible crimes and gruesome details, and killers being dramatically discovered.
I got : the lives of 2 profilers I don't care about, and entire chapters about the conflict between them and the police.
Yeah, there were 5 different crimes in this book, but G., there were more details about what Badcock likes to wear and how witty Boon can be than the actual offences.

[Sae-chan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Judging only from the performance of these two profilers, I would have thought that profiling was a dead-end science. Their arrogance, self conglaturatory attitude, and lack of follow up didn't really help. I really didn't see any contributions they made on all cases presented here.

PS. I am not a policeman

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book that looks at profilers in criminal cases. Not all of them are murders and 2 of the cases were unsolved.

It was quite interesting in that I was not aware of all the cases bar 1, although I fail to see how the profilers really helped, they were massively wrong most of the time!

[Christian Georgiev · Rating 3 out of 5]

The central thesis of this book is that criminal profiling is not what we have seen on TV, however, when arguing this thesis the author ends up presenting the profilers as nearly useless. Throughout the book the profiles appear just to sprinkle in some psychology jargon and provide a generic theory about what type of a person the offender may be. Those theories either just reiterate what the police already knew or are dead wrong.

[Daniela · Rating 3 out of 5]

This took surprisingly long to finish, and it dragged at points but an interesting book regardless.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually very dull. Spends a lot of time trying to explain that "Cracker" the TV series is not anything like the
real world. I think the majority of adults already know this. He is also an apologist for the police buttering them up in print every chance he gets. It really spoils the flow of the narrative.