Profiles in Murder: An FBI Legend Dissects Killers and Their Crimes

by Russell Vorpagel

Book Overview

This book reveals the inside story on how psychological profiling and old-fashioned detective work helped crack cases of serial killings, sex crimes, celebrity murders, hostage taking, terrorist... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0440235529
• ISBN13: 9780440235521
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Dell
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

a profile in stellar crime-fighting

I believe I've read all the books by Douglas, Ressler, and all the others writing about psychological profiling, yet I still found this an absorbing and fascinating book. Vorpagel presents a number of cases in which the crime scene is not always what it appears to be, and the unexpected (but plausible) explanations are more surprising than the rabbit-out-of-the-hat endings of 99.9% of crime fiction. The story of the training exercise in Chapter 7 alone is worth the price of the book. Highly recommended.

Learning From A Pro

If you are interested in the whys and hows here it is. When this man decided to put pen to paper he decided to let us into the deserted corridors of the killers mind. Upfront, in your face, and right on the mark. If this is the first book you buy on this subject than you are starting with the best.

Russell Vorpagel's Profiles In Murder

In this engrossing book Russell Vorpagel instructs a class in death investigation. He uses some known (and some no-so-known) cases to teach his class (and the reader) about some of the intricacies of death investigation, which include critical thinking in solving cases in profiling. One of the major strengths of this book is Vorpagel's use of a myriad of cases to demonstrate his points. His instruction to his class followed by a case study demonstrates his points in full detail. This book is "must read" for anyone interested in death investigation and profiling.

Couldn't Put It Down!

This is one of the best profiling books I have read. It doesn't focus so much on the profiler's life as it does on actual case history, which is what I prefer. I never got bored with this one as I have with others that tend to focus on the feelings and sometimes the professional jelousies between the FBI profilers. I would love to read another book of case stories by this team.

Very interesting & informative,Vorpagel is very entertaining

This book is very easy to read, I couldn't put it down (I read it in 4 hours).Very useful to public defenders, prosecutors, investigative officers, coroners, psychologists, etc. It gives a view of death investigations (forensics) as an art and not a science. The author takes you step by step through crime scenes depicting details that are gruesome and not for someone with a weak stomach. Overall, the author is very good and almost feels as if you are watching a horror movie. I recommend this book to anyone who works with death scenes, criminals and law enforcement.