Rating: 
Summary: things that make you go "Hmmm."
Review: I own all but one of Douglas's profiling books. This one strikes me as being written to write a book rather than being written because Douglas has something he wants to tell us. Nevertheless, I liked it. He actually named a suspect in the Ripper murders and nailed Bruno Hauptmann for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Certain of the reviewers have excoriated Douglas for favoring the parents in the Ramsey case. It's one thing to disagree, even to say someone's opinion is garbage. It's another entirely to slander someone's good name by stating he was motivated by money in this case. Douglas says he would give up the Ramseys in a heartbeat if he thought they were at all guilty and I have no cause to doubt that. Steve Thomas's book postulates that JonBenet was bludgeoned in a fit of rage and the garotte was part of the staging. Douglas says a crushing blow to the head would cause a lot of bleeding and lack of blood means she was garotted first. He does not answer several critical points raised by Thomas, but he does give me seriously to think. I had not thought that possible. Douglas is a good as he thinks he is. You can take that several ways.
Rating: 
Summary: Tremendously interesting
Review: I actually listened to this on an unabridged audio tape. It was a facinating trip to take. The author brought logic to the cases I've read about. He brings out facts I've never known and his deductions are compelling. It was well worth reading. I do believe he felt some loyalty to the Ramseys though, even though his deductions make sense.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: This book was a major disappointment for me, although that should not have come as a surprise since the quality of Mr. Douglas's books has declined steadily since the first one I read, Mind Hunter. The premise is a good one--he uses his modern "profiling" techniques to provide insights into some older, well-known murders. But his performance here is mediocre & this book proves to be his weakest yet. The first four chapters deal in detail with Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, the Lindbergh kidnapping, & the Zodiac killer. While the overviews are decent & his analysis more or less sound, of necessity he relies heavily on the writings & research of others & there is really nothing in these chapters that you could not find more extensively in a book devoted exclusively to any of those cases. The next chapter includes three more famous cases (the Black Dahlia, Bambi Bembenek, & the Boston Strangler) & the same criticisms that apply to the first chapters apply to this one except that his descriptions & analyses of the cases are much sketchier. The book really falls apart though, in the last full chapter, which covers JonBenet Ramsey. Douglas has ties to the Ramsey family & their lawyers &, while he makes a couple of good points in favor of the "intruder" theory, his allegiance is obvious & he often does not play fair with his readers. His attempts to defend the Ramseys from any & all allegations are fairly pathetic & seriously call into doubt his objectivity. As an example, he makes a big deal out of the fact that the Ramseys submitted to having samples of their hair, etc. taken saying that if they were guilty they would never have done so. But this is disingenuous--the crime scene was the Ramsey house which would have been full of their hair & DNA so matching their samples up with something found in the house would really be meaningless. On the other hand, the Ramseys have consistently refused to be interviewed by the police--interviews which, if they were guilty, would be very dangerous for them. Douglas also belittles the fact that the Ramseys hired lawyers right after the crime saying that any potential suspect would have done so. While true, it was this "lawyering up" that prevented the police from having contact with the Ramseys & from properly investigating the crime. While one could understand a suspect refusing to talk with the police even if he were innocent, it is much more difficult to understand the motivation of a parent whose daughter had just been brutally murdered to impede the investigation of the crime in such a substantial way. Interviewing & clearing the Ramseys, or using the information they provided to match up with other leads, could have focused on some other suspect & possibly solved the case. Regardless of who committed this crime, & it could very well have been an intruder, Douglas's tortured excuse making for the Ramseys pretty much ruins this book & his credibility in general. For someone who has never read anything on the crimes discussed in the early chapters, this book will provide a decent overview & reference for further reading. But the contents are nothing special &, in the case of the JonBenet chapter, are much less than that. Two stars.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating!!
Review: Douglas and Olshaker have done their usual stellar job in recounting several famous unsolved murders and approaching them from a 21st century perspective. They strip away all the sensationalism that surrounded these cases and focus in on the profiling that has proven correct so many times. What kind of person would have committed this crime? In this particular way, leaving behind these particular clues? This book has the some of the answers. The cases given such scrutiny are London's Jack the Ripper murders, Lizzie Borden and the hatchet murders of her father and step-mother, the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, California's Zodiac killer, and the JonBenet Ramsey murder. Other cases encapsulated in one chapter illustrating the power of motive to make or break a case are the Black Dahlia homicide, the Lawrencia Bembeneck case, and the Boston Strangler killings. It is fascinating to get to the heart of the matter, especially in the Ripper and Borden cases, and zero in on "just the facts" of who was there who had the motive, means, and opportunity to commit these crimes in this particular way? In the days before criminal profiling and behavioral analysis, it seemed as though it must be a crazed fiend running around killing people. Certainly not a God-fearing, Sunday School teacher of good family bashing in the heads of the parents to obtain a higher level of existence for herself. That speaks strongly to motive: who else but Lizzie (and her sister Emma) stood to gain if her parents were dead? Not a crazed fiend, but the Borden sisters themselves. Obviously a crazed fiend was responsible for the Ripper murders, for which Douglas produces a likely suspect. It was either this man, or someone very much like him. Someone who, after the last murder, disintegrated to such an extent he was institutionalized and died soon after. This makes more sense than, say, an elaborate conspiracy plot involving members of the Victorian royal family. Douglas dissects the crime to its individual components and adds them up to a behavioral profile and then compares this to the existing suspects. The best match is the likeliest culprit. Douglas seems less arrogant here than in other works; perhaps he worked on analyzing his own behavior! Also, another reviewer made the point that Douglas is inconsistent with his findings. His or her example is that Douglas doubts that an intruder broke in to the Borden home, killed Mrs. Borden, then waited 90 minutes and killed Mr. Borden. But it made perfect sense to Douglas that someone broke into the Ramsey home and waited hours for them to come home, go to sleep, and then abduct and murder JonBenet. His findings do make sense when you consider that the Borden home was an extremely small (even for the day) house, with no place to hide without being seen by someone. The Ramsey house was a very large and warren-like, which could have afforded an intruder ample places to wait for hours. I've got to say, Douglas has definitely changed my mind on the JonBenet Ramsey case; the combination of a compromised crime scene, incorrect suppositions, and tabloid sensationalism have contributed to a hopelessly muddled case which will in all probability never be solved. But Douglas is pretty persuasive that it was not John and Patsy Ramsey. I noticed a few typos, but all in all, a ripping good read!
Rating:
Summary: Good facts + expert research = a good book
Review: It seems as though John Douglas has a high opinion of himself in his books....and he has every right to feel that way; the man truly is a legend. Such a reputation is not built on trying to please everyone or go with the popular opinion, however, and that bound to be the conclusion some readers come to regarding the chapter on the Jon Benet Ramsey case. Everybody knows the details of this case, but truthfully, no matter who you believe really "dunnit" in this case, you cannot argue with the fact that Douglas makes a lot of good points in the Ramsey chapter. He actually makes a lot of good points in ALL the chapters: especially the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case. After reading it, you can't help but think how much easier this case would have been to solve if it has happened in a more modern era. There are a number of people out there who doubt the guilt of Hauptmann, and Douglas does an excellent job pointing out the indicias of guilt that seem to stare in only one direction. In the case of the Zodiac, Douglas does not exactly name a suspect but he does provide a very common sense method which the police could and should have used to catch this person. Douglas's account of how this criminal eluded the police for years and continues to do so is definitely deserved of reading. The chapters on Jack the Ripper and Lizzie Borden were interesting as well, but definitely do not stand out as a "must read" so if I had to skip something in this book, I would skip those. The only complaint I have regarding this book is that there are a lot of other very interesting cases highlighted in the chapter called "American Dreams/American Nightmares" which did not receive what I feel was enough "limelight". Included in this chapter are the Black Dahlia case, the case of Lawrencia "Bambi" Bembenek, and the Boston Strangler. I would have like to see more on these, especially the first two cases. Perhaps in a future endeavor of Douglas's? Either way, the information he does provide on these is interesting and worth a read; they only further compliment the expert opinions contained in this volume. I would definitely recommend this to any true crime buff. If you have more than a passing interest in understanding profiling, I would also recommend Mindhunter by this same author.
Rating:
Summary: Quite good until the end--then confusing
Review: I admit I wasn't familiar with Douglas' earlier works or his connection with the Ramsey case before buying this: what drew me to the book were both the historical murders (Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, & The Lindbergh case), and Douglas' way of approaching them, weighing all the evidence, considering victimology, the various suspects, and profiling the killer. What kept the book from being dry was Douglas' writing style, the fact that he spoke in his own voice, and not the voice of a police report. This offered a chance to see not just into the mind of the UNSUB's (unknown subjects), but also into the mind of Douglas, to see how he works these cases. Given the historical interest of the earlier cases, the book works quite well until the last chapter; Douglas provides many sensible hypotheses and observations to the cases of Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, the Zodiac killer and the Boston strangler. However, the last chapter, dealing with the JonBenet Ramsey murder, is difficult going from the start, given Douglas' relation to the case. Obviously, he can't be completely objective. While he does go through all the evidence as meticulously as in the other chapters, he seems to be too close to the events in question. After describing an interview with John Ramsey and his lawyer, which ended in tears being shed by both men, Douglas writes, "Could this have been more staging for my benefit? I quickly concluded it was not. I think after interviewing hundreds of offenders and victims, I'm experienced enough to recognize genuine tears when I see them." In the same chapter, Douglas argues that the child's killer would have had to enter the house and wait several hours for the Ramsey's to fall asleep before taking the girl from her bedroom. Yet in the chapter on Lizzie Borden, Douglas argues for Miss Borden's guilt by casting serious doubt that a stranger to the household would hide in the Borden house for the ninety minutes that elapsed between the two murders there. All in all, I believe that too little time, less than four years, has passed since the Ramsey case for Douglas or anyone else to write objectively about a subject which is still so emotionally charged. Interestingly enough, in the first chapter, Douglas admits that his feelings on the Jack the Ripper case have changed in the twelve years since he participated in a television show called The Secret Indentity of Jack the Ripper. I would be curious to hear Douglas' feelings about the Ramsey case in a decade or so, after some of the lingering controversy surrounding that case has faded.
Rating: 
Summary: That dog won't hunt!
Review: P.T. Barnum said "There's a sucker born every minute" and it appears that the Ramseys have found a big one in former F.B.I. profiler and "Mindhunter" John Douglas. If you buy this book, then maybe Douglas has found one too. If you are intellectually curious about this book, but don't want to be part of P.T.'s prophesy, borrow it from the library (as I did) or read it in a book store while sipping a fine cappucino. The foundation of American criminal jurisprudence is that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty. But that does not require a totally gullible populace. It appears that John Douglas has gone quite daft - all Patsy had to do was bat those "Runner-up-beauty-queen" eyes at him. Patsy is a former Miss West Virginia, a state where they say such things as "Use that good southern common sense of yours." (Coincidentally (?) a phrase from the "ransom note" - See also "Author Unknown - On the Trail of Anonymous" by Donald W. Foster.) There's another colloquialism they have in the south: "That dog won't hunt!" Despite reliance on his previous books and the first part of this one, Douglas' rationalizations around the Ramseys won't hunt. The first part of the book is ostensibly a tour through historic crimes from a profiler's point of view. These portions are interesting and often, for instance his views on Lawrencia (Bambi) Bembenick and Albert DeSalvo, make more sense than the "conventional wisdom." But when the reader arrives at the chapter on JonBenet Ramsey's murder, it becomes clear that the authors' objective throughout was to buttress his Ramsey rationalizations - for example: "As we saw in the Lindbergh case..." Dr. Sam Sheppard's case is employed as a "cautionary tale" in Douglas' Ramsey rationalizations. (p. 310) The tragedy of the Sheppard family is written by Dr. Sam's son in "Mockery of Justice: the True Story of the Sheppard Murder Case." The Sheppard book is also available here on Amazon.com and is, IMHO, a more prudent investment. John Douglas blows his own horn that he is no longer being paid by the Ramseys. But he is selling this book. So, remember what P.T. Barnum said!
Rating:
Summary: Another Great Read from Douglas!
Review: In Cases that Haunt Us, Douglas takes us into some of the most infamous cases of all time giving us his expert opinion and analysis based on the evidence from these cases. From Jack the Ripper to Jon Benet Ramsey you will be immediately hooked to this book and won't want to put it down, but what else could be expected from Douglas? The man is pure genius and it certainly shines in this work! Another job well done!
Rating:
Summary: Haunting
Review: I found this book interesting in the sense that we all know these cases but there are certain aspects that seem to have been overlooked. Maybe they just weren't interesting enough for tv I don't know. But in this review of some horrific cases we see the mindhunter disect them in a comprehensive way that opens the books on these cases and lays them out in a consice way. Excellant look into these case. Although I feel the opinion of the mindhunter may not be what others may feel is what really happened, but keep your minds open and let the information speak for itself.
Rating:
Summary: Superb Book!!
Review: A masterpiece from the world's leading criminal profiler. Like very few of us who read about it, Douglas has done it--he's lived inside the mind of evil and that is how he is able to paint such disturbing portraits of evil. How he has remained sane through all of this is a puzzle to me. Superb book!! I recommend it to all true crime fans.
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