|
|
US Mall 1 - The Anatomy of Motive: The Fbi's Legendary Mindhunter Explores the Key to Understanding and Catching Violent Criminals
|
List Price: $25.95
Our Price:
Your Save: $ 25.95 ( 100% )
Availability:
Manufacturer: Wheeler Publishing
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.150973
EAN: 9781568959269
Format: Large Print
ISBN: 1568959265
Label: Wheeler Publishing
Manufacturer: Wheeler Publishing
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 47
Publication Date: 2000-09
Publisher: Wheeler Publishing
Studio: Wheeler Publishing
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Product as shown
Comment: The product was in the exact condition as described and the delivery time was prompt.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Well Done
Comment: Though repetitious in some parts (if you have read the author's other books), it is well put together and informative. Another job well done.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Inside Smoldering Minds
Comment: This is an engrossing book that was ahead of its time in presenting the often seamy, often searching field of forensic science. Douglas brings us onto the crime scene, and gives us a view through the eyes of profilers, pathologists, analyzers, and detectives.
The only fault I find with the book is its general contention that criminals choose their behavior. Without rehashing the nature vs. nurture controversy too much, a consideration of some of the possible physiological factors influencing criminals might have led to a more three-dimensional view of the criminal mind.
Douglas uses the fact that an offender can almost always restrain himself from committing a crime while a policeman is watching him as proof that virtually all criminal behavior is under the individual's control. I can't help but think though of the somewhat parallel condition of people with disorders such as Tourette's Syndrome. Tourette's sufferers can at times reduce or even eliminate their ticcing behavior when they are briefly in public. But their tics will return all the more insistently when they are alone again. So a criminal's ability to briefly control himself isn't necessarily an indication that he can always control himself.
A compulsive element seems to be especially apparent in crimes such as arson, which Douglas is often at his best discussing. He links this crime to a desire to command and manipulate. The arsonist gets the satisfaction of watching a whole slew of people, firemen and victims alike, scurrying around as a result of the problem he has created.
However, as Douglas himself reveals, there is also often some physically-rooted obsession that goads pyromaniacs. Douglas presents the case of Peter George Dinsdale in England for instance. This man was an epileptic who would set fires after he experienced a tingling in his fingers followed by some triggering, often trivial, altercation with his victims. This description also left me wondering if the flickering of flames might produce a more markedly pleasurable, fixating trance-like state in some people than in others.
A variety of criminal acts that Douglas describes center around fetishes and fanaticisms that might similarly have some neurological quirk as their basis.
Overall though, Douglas does a fine job of putting his readers on the trail of the criminal. He brings Sherlock Holmes onto current crime scenes by illustrating how a forensic scientist's work boils down to details - attention to details. He cites the case of arson in which a Torah was purposefully burned from right to left - cluing the detectives into the fact that the perpetrator must have been someone with a knowledge of Hebrew.
And like Holmes' classic clue of the dog that didn't bark, Douglas alerts us to the importance of details that are not there. Such observations are often important in insurance cases. When someone burns his own property for money, he will often remove items of special sentimental value first. If there are no family photo albums left in the ashes - that's a clue.
This book reminds us that no detail is trivial or uninteresting. Any mote might have a story to tell. If we could approach life from the viewpoint of the forensic scientists in these pages - we would never be bored.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A trip to a very dark place
Comment: When it comes to bringing serial crime psychology and profiling to a level that a layperson can understand, Douglas is peerless. He identifies several different types of serial killers and includes true-life stories of a few he's dealt with in his decades with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. It's an engrossing, easily understandable and fascinating read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not as riveting as I expected
Comment: When I saw this book in a used book store, I thought the title was "Anatomy of Murder". Only later did I see that it was "Motive". Based on Douglas' other books about serial killers, I expected this book to deal strictly with serial killers. And it did not.
Douglas' book described a range of killers; and his chapters are broken down accordingly. There are chapters on the anatomy of arsonists; people who use guns to commit crimes; those who poison and why; and other chapters ranging from guys who simply snap to those who commit random violence.
I wasn't really interested in serial arsonists so I skipped that chapter. The rest of the book was interesting but I think the chapters would have been much better if Douglas had focused on one or two specific cases rather than telling us snippets of several cases.
Would I read this book again? Probably not. Several of his other books are better.
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Product as shown
Comment: The product was in the exact condition as described and the delivery time was prompt.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Well Done
Comment: Though repetitious in some parts (if you have read the author's other books), it is well put together and informative. Another job well done.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Inside Smoldering Minds
Comment: This is an engrossing book that was ahead of its time in presenting the often seamy, often searching field of forensic science. Douglas brings us onto the crime scene, and gives us a view through the eyes of profilers, pathologists, analyzers, and detectives.
The only fault I find with the book is its general contention that criminals choose their behavior. Without rehashing the nature vs. nurture controversy too much, a consideration of some of the possible physiological factors influencing criminals might have led to a more three-dimensional view of the criminal mind.
Douglas uses the fact that an offender can almost always restrain himself from committing a crime while a policeman is watching him as proof that virtually all criminal behavior is under the individual's control. I can't help but think though of the somewhat parallel condition of people with disorders such as Tourette's Syndrome. Tourette's sufferers can at times reduce or even eliminate their ticcing behavior when they are briefly in public. But their tics will return all the more insistently when they are alone again. So a criminal's ability to briefly control himself isn't necessarily an indication that he can always control himself.
A compulsive element seems to be especially apparent in crimes such as arson, which Douglas is often at his best discussing. He links this crime to a desire to command and manipulate. The arsonist gets the satisfaction of watching a whole slew of people, firemen and victims alike, scurrying around as a result of the problem he has created.
However, as Douglas himself reveals, there is also often some physically-rooted obsession that goads pyromaniacs. Douglas presents the case of Peter George Dinsdale in England for instance. This man was an epileptic who would set fires after he experienced a tingling in his fingers followed by some triggering, often trivial, altercation with his victims. This description also left me wondering if the flickering of flames might produce a more markedly pleasurable, fixating trance-like state in some people than in others.
A variety of criminal acts that Douglas describes center around fetishes and fanaticisms that might similarly have some neurological quirk as their basis.
Overall though, Douglas does a fine job of putting his readers on the trail of the criminal. He brings Sherlock Holmes onto current crime scenes by illustrating how a forensic scientist's work boils down to details - attention to details. He cites the case of arson in which a Torah was purposefully burned from right to left - cluing the detectives into the fact that the perpetrator must have been someone with a knowledge of Hebrew.
And like Holmes' classic clue of the dog that didn't bark, Douglas alerts us to the importance of details that are not there. Such observations are often important in insurance cases. When someone burns his own property for money, he will often remove items of special sentimental value first. If there are no family photo albums left in the ashes - that's a clue.
This book reminds us that no detail is trivial or uninteresting. Any mote might have a story to tell. If we could approach life from the viewpoint of the forensic scientists in these pages - we would never be bored.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A trip to a very dark place
Comment: When it comes to bringing serial crime psychology and profiling to a level that a layperson can understand, Douglas is peerless. He identifies several different types of serial killers and includes true-life stories of a few he's dealt with in his decades with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. It's an engrossing, easily understandable and fascinating read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not as riveting as I expected
Comment: When I saw this book in a used book store, I thought the title was "Anatomy of Murder". Only later did I see that it was "Motive". Based on Douglas' other books about serial killers, I expected this book to deal strictly with serial killers. And it did not.
Douglas' book described a range of killers; and his chapters are broken down accordingly. There are chapters on the anatomy of arsonists; people who use guns to commit crimes; those who poison and why; and other chapters ranging from guys who simply snap to those who commit random violence.
I wasn't really interested in serial arsonists so I skipped that chapter. The rest of the book was interesting but I think the chapters would have been much better if Douglas had focused on one or two specific cases rather than telling us snippets of several cases.
Would I read this book again? Probably not. Several of his other books are better.
Array
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
