Scan barcode
klpurcell's review against another edition
1.0
There were many things wrong with this book. The first one being that the author thinks she is the only one to have had these "groundbreaking" views of how the criminal justice system does not work. Had she an education that would lend itself useful to her chosen career path, she would know that scholars have been aware of the many issues she brought up, and have been trying to fix the system for decades. She is not revolutionary.
The second issue I had with this book was that the author contradicted herself many times, which takes away from her credibility. I feel like, after what she said about how it is necessary to have all the information about the crime possible to come up with an accurate profile, profiling crimes without police cooperation should not be done. Yet she profiled two crimes without police cooperation. Why bother profiling at that point? Not to mention her credibility takes a hit when she admits her only degree is a liberal arts degree. Perhaps she should have gone back for psychology or criminology?
My final bone with this book is that, if she is to be believed, every person in the world is a psychopath. The two best examples are from her time as an American Sign Language interpreter for emergency rooms. One man mimicked one of his friends, pretending he had sickle cell anemia. He would do this to feed his drug addiction. According to our "professional profiler" this makes him a psychopath. According to educated individuals, this makes him a drug addict. The second example is a girl who claimed she was raped daily, then when the doctors were not in the room, would act like nothing was wrong at all. Psychopath. Or, dealing with a traumatic event or, more likely from her explanation, and attention seeker. Not everyone who lies is a psychopath, something someone should tell this inept profiler.
The second issue I had with this book was that the author contradicted herself many times, which takes away from her credibility. I feel like, after what she said about how it is necessary to have all the information about the crime possible to come up with an accurate profile, profiling crimes without police cooperation should not be done. Yet she profiled two crimes without police cooperation. Why bother profiling at that point? Not to mention her credibility takes a hit when she admits her only degree is a liberal arts degree. Perhaps she should have gone back for psychology or criminology?
My final bone with this book is that, if she is to be believed, every person in the world is a psychopath. The two best examples are from her time as an American Sign Language interpreter for emergency rooms. One man mimicked one of his friends, pretending he had sickle cell anemia. He would do this to feed his drug addiction. According to our "professional profiler" this makes him a psychopath. According to educated individuals, this makes him a drug addict. The second example is a girl who claimed she was raped daily, then when the doctors were not in the room, would act like nothing was wrong at all. Psychopath. Or, dealing with a traumatic event or, more likely from her explanation, and attention seeker. Not everyone who lies is a psychopath, something someone should tell this inept profiler.
hannah_em's review against another edition
1.0
Uninspiring. I wanted to like this book - but it's mostly a woman bragging about how she's smarter than everyone else. Brown says she wants to improve the justice system but most of the book is just police/law enforcement bashing. Not a great way to start a dialogue for change
natrix's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
This book is horrible.
This lady thinks she is a profiler, because she read some books, then she goes around accusing anyone of the most horrible crimes that may or may not even have been committed, just because they are different than her idea of a 'normal' person (i.e. white, middle class, home-schooled, neurotypical, cis identifying and heterosexual) .
Most of this book is about how perfect everything she did was, detailing her whole (boring) life and explains that when she got bored, she decided that she was living with a serialkiller and read some books, decided she was a profiler now, stalked the police, etc.
She sounds like a horrible, judgemental and victim blaming person and I hope she is never close to any serious police investigation ever becauseshe never helped solve ANY case ever before writing this book .
This lady thinks she is a profiler, because she read some books, then she goes around accusing anyone of the most horrible crimes that may or may not even have been committed, just because they are different than her idea of a 'normal' person (i.e. white, middle class, home-schooled, neurotypical, cis identifying and heterosexual) .
Most of this book is about how perfect everything she did was, detailing her whole (boring) life and explains that when she got bored, she decided that she was living with a serialkiller and read some books, decided she was a profiler now, stalked the police, etc.
She sounds like a horrible, judgemental and victim blaming person and I hope she is never close to any serious police investigation ever because
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape, Suicide, Sexual assault, and Murder
library_hungry's review against another edition
2.0
1.5. Not a common score--if you hate it that much, are you actually going to parse how much you dislike it? But really, the extra 0.5 is because I got what I asked for--stories of a profiler solving crimes by thinking them through.
Why wasn't it good? All sorts of reasons. Not very well-written--clearly the coauthor had plenty of work to do in just organizing the author's points coherently and keeping it from looking like a report. Aside from a few canned phrases of support, she paints the police pretty much uniformly as lazy, untrained, political hacks who don't really care if murderers are at large preying on our precious children. In fact, she's pretty dismissive of almost everyone.
There was also the more mundane, reader-centric frustration of the fact that she works only on cold cases, and no one really seems to listen to her. Although she comes up with a fairly well-reasoned theory in each of the cases she outlines, no case is ever closed or killer ever caught. And even when her conclusions agree with those of the police, she's still really disparaging of them.
Blargh.
Why wasn't it good? All sorts of reasons. Not very well-written--clearly the coauthor had plenty of work to do in just organizing the author's points coherently and keeping it from looking like a report. Aside from a few canned phrases of support, she paints the police pretty much uniformly as lazy, untrained, political hacks who don't really care if murderers are at large preying on our precious children. In fact, she's pretty dismissive of almost everyone.
There was also the more mundane, reader-centric frustration of the fact that she works only on cold cases, and no one really seems to listen to her. Although she comes up with a fairly well-reasoned theory in each of the cases she outlines, no case is ever closed or killer ever caught. And even when her conclusions agree with those of the police, she's still really disparaging of them.
Blargh.
hollywfranklin's review
3.0
Read on the plane to Chicago in hopes it would deter weirdos from sitting next to me. It seemed to work.
erine277's review against another edition
4.0
I think I missed my calling in some area of law enforcement. This stuff fascinates me! The only bummer about this book is that none of the cases she profiled were officially solved.
stacy_z's review against another edition
Gave up; insufferable author syndrome strikes again
zade's review against another edition
3.0
Pat Brown is certainly an interesting person. Once a homeschooling, stay-at-home mom and sign-language interpreter, she shifted paths in her 40s to become a self-taught criminal profiler and is now nationally recognized in her field. Even better, most of her work is for victims and their families and it is *always* pro bono. Her income comes from public appearances and the occasional hire by a defense team. She's the founder of the only non-law-enforcement profiler training program (Excelsior College).
Certainly, within the world of profiling, she's more than a bit of a maverick. She's not at all afraid to criticize the big names from the FBI's ISU, nor is she shy about calling out shoddy police work, whether caused by political motivations, incompetence, or simple ego. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of LEOs who can't stand her. BUT, she backs up her opinions with careful evidence and goes out of her way to give credit to others where it is due. She is clearly frustrated with the law enforcement and justice systems, but rather than attack the whole thing, she's looking for ways to make it better.
Brown's personal story is, surprisingly, the most interesting part of the book. Generally, one reads these books for puzzles solved and bad guys caught. In Brown's case, the crime stories she tells are, to a one, unsolved to this day. She gives good explanations of her conclusions for the cases, but apparently has very little luck in getting those in charge of investigating to follow up on her suggestions. Granted, she states at the beginning that she does not include many cases she has worked because doing could hurt ongoing investigations or prosecutions or because she has signed nondisclosure agreements with the law enforcement agencies involved. Nonetheless, the cases she presents end up being extremely frustrating in that the reader has no way to judge if she was right, if the investigators were truly being unreasonable in ignoring her, or if she's not as good as she says.
Regardless of how the reader ends up seeing her professionally, there is no doubt that she is a woman on a mission to reform the way crime investigations are handled and, as a result, to make people safer. Her determination, her ability to teach herself what she needed to know, and her reinvention of herself at an age when many people are settling comfortably into their ruts, make her a fascinating person.
Certainly, within the world of profiling, she's more than a bit of a maverick. She's not at all afraid to criticize the big names from the FBI's ISU, nor is she shy about calling out shoddy police work, whether caused by political motivations, incompetence, or simple ego. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of LEOs who can't stand her. BUT, she backs up her opinions with careful evidence and goes out of her way to give credit to others where it is due. She is clearly frustrated with the law enforcement and justice systems, but rather than attack the whole thing, she's looking for ways to make it better.
Brown's personal story is, surprisingly, the most interesting part of the book. Generally, one reads these books for puzzles solved and bad guys caught. In Brown's case, the crime stories she tells are, to a one, unsolved to this day. She gives good explanations of her conclusions for the cases, but apparently has very little luck in getting those in charge of investigating to follow up on her suggestions. Granted, she states at the beginning that she does not include many cases she has worked because doing could hurt ongoing investigations or prosecutions or because she has signed nondisclosure agreements with the law enforcement agencies involved. Nonetheless, the cases she presents end up being extremely frustrating in that the reader has no way to judge if she was right, if the investigators were truly being unreasonable in ignoring her, or if she's not as good as she says.
Regardless of how the reader ends up seeing her professionally, there is no doubt that she is a woman on a mission to reform the way crime investigations are handled and, as a result, to make people safer. Her determination, her ability to teach herself what she needed to know, and her reinvention of herself at an age when many people are settling comfortably into their ruts, make her a fascinating person.