This is the second book and first memoir of John Douglas, one of the most famous FBI agents ever (except J Edgar of course) tells the story of how he grew up as basically middle class middle American boy. He was fairly intelligent with some athletic prowess and joined the Air Force after dropping out of college.  This was published after his retirement from the FBI in 1995.  

Mindhunter 
Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit
by: John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker
Read by Richard M. Davidson- 15h 24m
Rating: 6 / true crime, FBI profiling

Warning, the narration is very distracting in many places it gets overly emotional. .The content really doesn’t need that.  Fortunately at about 1/2 or 2/3 the reader mellows a bit – but not all the way.  

But maybe the problem is that Douglas is very opinionated and only sometimes gives lip service to the other point of view. He generally takes the position that although these folks are not legally insane they should NOT be released to the public no matter what the parole board and their psychologists say. Douglas wants them to stay locked up.  (Considering the danger to society based on real prior activities, I mostly tend to agree with him, but I”m not quite so adamant about it)

And, with a 1995 publication date, I think maybe the book is somewhat dated.  Multiple Personality Disorder doesn’t get much attention these days. Psychopathic is not psychotic. Douglas gets into this in the last chapters.  But profiling was a very controversial technique30 years ago, it’s not so much now.    We could probably use some profiling on the school shooters and other mass shooters.  (I think we’d find the same thing – loners, feeling of inadequacy, interest in guns, the list goes on.)

Profilingi is for times when law enforcement doesn’t have a real “suspect” or even “persons of interest.” these unspecified persons are called Un-Subs meaning Unknown Susupects. This technique seems to be more valuable when the victims are random . Profiling gives law enforcement some direction to the search. Profiling helps with locating the un-subs, too.

There are sections about serial killers, sexual deviants, kidnappers, bombers, stalking and all sorts of crimes where the suspects can be substantially narrowed down by profiling and with Douglas the crime can sometimes be satisfactorily solved.  At first he got a lot more education and moved into teaching the subject for the FBI school at Quantico and other places.  

Local law enforcement calls ehe FBI because of an interstate crime or some other reason. Maybe they want some profiling done on a particular case.  That’s what the book is about, the profiling Douglas along with others developed in order to track down and capture their suspects.  

This is not sloppy stereotyping by race, ethnicity, religion, neighborhood, and so on. Douglas is looking at more specific things like feelings of inadequacy, living with parents, moving around at night, being possessive and controlling. Yes, hating women or certain ethnic groups is one of the factors.  

Women are discussed but none specifically – they’re usually victims and internalize their stressors. Women are actually quite rare as violent criminals.

The Green River murders of the 1980s are described, but the capture and incarceration of Gary Ridgway is not. He was arrested in 2001 and the improved DNA testing was instrumental in his arrest and plea bargain. The happened after Mindhunter was published.

He ends with Jack the Ripper and then the BTK killer of 1979 – 1993 neither of which were captured and convicted at the time of writing. Then after some personal advice about stressors he closes with his retirement from the FBI in the year this book was first published.   He’s written many books since but I’m not sure they tempt me. There are really too many great ones out there.