Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit

I want to be fair to this book first because the work John Douglas and his peers have done is extremely important, and second because the book was written in 1996 (even though the audiobook says 2017). Anyone interested in true crime should consider reading or listening to this book because it covers all the big crimes and serial killers we’ve heard about. It’s a fascinating companion to podcasts, shows, and other books with its detail and anecdotal stories.

If you do read this book approach it with a massive caveat: it’s exceptionally dated. Reading it with the lens of 2022 might make it unreadable to some unfortunately. The first issue is the machismo in the book. Douglas is self-aggrandizing to the point of eye roll. He takes every opportunity to praise himself as well as settle extremely off topic petty scores. He sounds like such a blow hard, which is unfortunate because I’m sure he’s a genius and he’s got to be an incredibly sensitive person because he’s so astute at his work. His arrogance doesn’t do him any favors in this book. I was able to tolerate him through the book by telling myself that hopefully the editor and co-writer made his ego much bigger than it was due to the era of the book. There’s also tons of outdated terminology (Macdonald triad which has since been essentially debunked), junk science referenced through out the book (teeth impressions, hair analysis, etc.) and cases referred to as still open (The Green River Killer, BTK, Unibomber - although this seems to sort have been edited?), as well as super outdated attitudes towards women and sex workers. The way he refers to women, girls, and sex workers is really hard to listen to. Praising women and girls for their looks and attitudes and often confirming that sex workers were disposable. Huge bummer. Douglas’ take on the death penalty is also outdated, and he proselytizes a lot throughout the book about it. If I never hear the phrase “ass pucker factor” again it’ll be too soon.

The book is extremely graphic to the point of excessive. It’s also probably much longer than it could be.

Overall if you can separate yourself from the above it’s an interesting listen. True crime is pretty problematic after all.

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zuly's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative fast-paced

2.0

Self-awareness, we don’t know her 🥴😂

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