The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI’s Original Mindhunter

Douglas, a pioneer in profiling serial killers for the FBI, and longtime cowriter Olshaker (The Anatomy of Motive: The FBI’s Legendary Mindhunter Explores the Key to Understanding and Catching Violent Criminals) provide an eye-opening and chilling look into the minds of brutal murderers. Douglas and his colleagues had used their experiences talking with killers to develop rigorous interview methods that allowed them “to start correlating the crime to what was actually in the criminal’s mind at the time,” linking whatever evidence was left behind with the murderer’s thoughts, emotions, and motivations. Those methods allowed the agents to add to the study of behavioral profiling by drawing conclusions about what the killers had in common; each offender “grew up without forming trusting bonds with other human beings during their formative years,” and their motivations could be characterized as “Manipulation. Domination. Control.” Douglas succeeds in taking readers inside his own mind as he worked to understand “four killers [he] confronted” after retiring from the Bureau, using these techniques. In order to make conversations with human monsters—such as Joseph Kondro, who raped and murdered the young daughters of people he knew—productive and educational, Douglas learned how to think like them. Douglas also explains the vital importance of restraining the “moral outrage” he feels at the horrors his interview subjects admit to, so that he can get them to open up about their motivations and triggers. By again separating fact from fiction, Douglas adds to lay readers’ understanding of human evil. [em]Agent: Frank Weimann, Folio Literary Management. (May) [/em]