A review by lilias
Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI by Robert K. Ressler

3.0

I very much appreciate Ressler’s honesty and empathy, like when he states his objection to putting the mentally ill in prison or jail instead of a hospital. Ressler’s pioneering work with the FBI is fascinating as is that of John Edward Douglas (I thought Ressler’s offhand description of Douglas was pretty funny as it’s very much how they are portrayed in things like Mindhunter.) Both of their books are fascinating in spite of the writing.

It’s worth noting that Ressler insists that profiling is more an art than a science. There was a part of this book that gave me chills, and it involved the judicial system not the criminals. While discussing the Roscetti case, Ressler references the Central Park Five as an example of justice done right. Even though I knew this book came out in the early 1990s I still had to read that a few times as a disturbing glimpse into history. I still couldn’t move on. I decided to look up the the Roscetti case: The four that were arrested and convicted were exonerated long after this book was published. While I don’t place the blame of wrongful convictions on profilers, this was an unintentionally enlightening part of the book.