Review by Booklist Review
Ressler's the FBI veteran upon whom the likes of Jack Crawford in Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs are based--very loosely, Ressler insists. He has spent his career not apprehending rapists and killers, but studying them and, most important, interviewing them in order to understand the kinds of minds that commit the most heinous crimes. He's a criminal psychological profiler, not the first but one whose career fortuitously developed during the communications and computer revolutions that respectively increased public concern about compulsive killers and furnished the capacity to amass a database on them. Reading very much as though they are skillful popularizations of the lectures he's made to police seminars throughout the world, the chapters of Ressler's work-memoir are full of the grisly crimes he's been asked to help investigate and the interviews he's made of such arch-fiends as Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. These case histories keep true-crime-reader interest very high while fadging perfectly with the points Ressler makes about his work and its demonstrated potential for speeding the capture of compulsive killers. ~--Ray Olson
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Former FBI agent Ressler, who coined the term ``serial killer'' in the 1970s, recounts in straightforward style his interviews with such infamous murderers as Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy. A BOMC selection in cloth. Photos. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
The success of Silence of the Lambs has readers fascinated with serial killers. ``New applicants to the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit are taking Jodie Foster's character as a role model,'' notes Ressler, who was consulted for the movie but felt it should have been more realistic. The book is an informative and insightful account of Ressler's 30-year FBI career and the development of the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. Ressler's numerous interviews with convicted killers (e.g., David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy), use of behavioral sciences principles, and many years of detective experience have given him an uncanny ability to ``read'' a crime scene and develop a criminal profile of the offender. His involvement in multiple serial killer investigations gives the reader an insider's view into police work. This book is an entertaining alternative to Eric W. Hickey's Serial Murderers and Their Victims ( Wadsworth, 1991) and Joel Norris's Serial Killers (Doubleday, 1988). Recommended for general readers and true crime collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/92.-- Robert Hodder, Memorial Univ. of Newfoundland Lib., St. John's (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The FBI agent who coined the term ``serial killer'' boasts about his exploits--and for good reason. Modesty isn't Ressler's strong suit, as even the subtitle attests, but his career is packed with so many amazing episodes- -well related here with the help of Shachtman (Skyscraper Dreams, 1991, etc.)--that the chest-beating is forgivable. Ressler's major contribution to criminology has been his pioneering work in psychological profiling, which he developed by visiting prisons and talking to scores of convicted killers. His accounts here of interviews with Charles Manson, Richard Speck, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and others are told with a fine flair for drama--e.g., of being locked in a cell with 6'9'', 300-pound mutilation-killer Ed Kemper, who, when it was clear that guards weren't answering Ressler's call to open the cell door, threatened to ``screw off'' the FBI man's head. Myriad tales of how Ressler tracked down killers complement the jailhouse yarns and offer much insight into serial killers' minds. Of primary importance is to determine whether a killer is ``organized'' or ``disorganized,'' stresses Ressler, who goes on to explain that all serial killings are classified as ``sexual homicides,'' because at their root is a ``sexual maladjustment'' that ``drives'' the ``fantasies'' that are played out in death. As deeply as Ressler gets into killers' heads, though, he refuses to reveal much of his own here, offering no explanation other than ``fascination'' and ``interest'' for why he's devoted his life to a calling so dire and soul-wearying that, as he emphasizes and as the title quote from Nietzsche concludes, one who follows it risks becoming ``a monster himself.'' Gibbering horrors brought to heel, secrets of the serial- killer unveiled: a true-crime bonanza, though a bit more self- introspection would have iced the cake. (Sixteen-page b&w photo insert--not seen.)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
