Journey into Darkness

This book is big but the margins and TINY font look like they were meant for a MUCH smaller book. I have great vision but this is just too small for me. Returning and will get the hardcover.

I think I've read almost everything Douglas has written. A former FBI, founding "profiler," he is able to write about his experiences in a very understandable manner.

great read, helpful advice to general public, worth every penny

For those whom love true crime and learning about forensics, this is the book for you. Anything by John Douglas, former FBI Behavioral Unit Agent is wonderful. He is always on point and factual. But it is not for the feint of hear. He is very detailed about cases which can be gruesome.

This book captures your attention with horrific details of major crimes. Douglas takes you into the lives of the victims and gives you a glimpse of who they were and how much they meant to their families. This book leaves you with a better understanding of how to protect yourself from the horrors that lurk around each corner. You may think you have heard of and read about some of the worst criminals, but after reading this book, you will realize how bad some of them actually are.

Gives insight not only in what motivates criminals but also in the how the whole justice system works or doesn't. For example why it takes 20 plus years to carry out a death sentence.

Like Mindhunter, the book as well as the Netflix show, this book gives great insight into the criminals that roamed our nightmares.

Journey Into Darkness is written by John Douglas, one of the original criminal profilers in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As he traveled across the country, he would drop in on killers in local prisoners and, if they were willing, would interview them in detail about the "how" and "why" and anything else they would disclose about their murders, rapes and other crimes. He had the information organized and soon began to get a real feel for "getting in the minds" of these criminals. John Douglas shares some of those stories along with the "how" & "why", as much as can be explained, in this fascinating, well-written book. There is so much to be learned, and a lot of this can be translated into how you can protect yourself against a lot of these crimes which are crimes of opportunity. Well worth the read.

I enjoyed his 1st book and was pleased to see this at a bargain 99p. Now however I understand why it was so cheap. It starts off well, although a little repetitive. But at chapter 5 he suddenly decides to talk about his theories on paedophiles. This is very obvious and very, very repetitive. Found myself skipping paragraphs and then pages. After an eternity the chapter ended but the next one was basically the same again, but this time even duller, if that were possible. Suddenly he returns to a specific case mentioned at the start, but now "details" the victims life from the process of her adoption, through growing up and her career in the military, in incredibly dull prose, which drags on and on and....As she was a random victim her past had no bearing on her being murdered, and the only reason for the detail as far as I can see is that he admires her parents and wanted to set up the subsequent chapter about their charity and campaigning work. By this point I was flicking so many pages of dull text that I realised I was wasting my time and shut it down unfinished.

I read this book after watching Mindhunter on Netflix, great show. ...... onto the book....  In terms of writing style and flow it felt like it was three distinct sections, there are two authors so maybe that's the result ..... the first covered the different classifications of serial killers and their drivers/attributes, it seemed like a long series of various crimes which kind of blurred into each other after a while but I found it very interesting what the profilers deduced from the various features of the crime scene. After a while the shock value wears off and you focus more on the details and insights ...... it seems like a massive change of style and pace when a few chapters focus on the victims of one crime, it takes you though the victim's background, life, personality, her family and it's from that perspective the devestating effects of the crime really hit home and I realised how these chapters do make you aware that you've just read about 20 odd other crimes without focusig on the victims ........ it helps show just how devestating  these criminals are on society. The end then touches on his opinions on encarceration of these types of criminals which I found honest, realistic ..... and aligned to my own ....... plus there's a section on how to protect your kids from such attackers, building their self esteem etc so they're not so susceptible to the attackers various approaches ......  glad I read it, will also read other books by him.

I have already read Mindhunter so this was natural progression. The two most disturbing books I have ever read. I am an avid reader and gone through historical books including holocaust, and other wars but these are very upsetting and not for the faint hearted.How this team could spend years developing these skills and not be scarred forever is beyond me.The families left damaged must be so grateful to them for their dedication. I will be a long time remembering what I have just read.

This book is well written and started off being interesting - as the blurb suggests it is about the use of profiling to identify and convict murderers. However, as the book goes on it focuses more on the assaults and murders of children and while it is interesting to see into the mind of someone who commits such awful crimes, there is too much detail which I don't really want to know about so I've stopped reading.

An amazing written book. Not only does it give advice, it's also a good educational book when it comes to criminal psychology.