46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Once More Into the Abyss, September 28, 2003
Gregg McCrary's "The Unknown Darkness" is the latest in a series of books written by alumni of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. The book is a well-written page turner, and McCrary is refreshingly modest compared to some of his former colleagues.
McCrary reviews several cases, the most prominent of which are the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, the Buddhist Temple Massacre in Phoenix, Arizona, the search for the Scarborough Rapist (who eventually became a serial murderer), and the prosecution of Jack Unterweger (an international serial killer who committed murders in Czechoslovakia, Austria and Los Angeles). McCrary also re-visits the famous Sam Sheppard murder case, concluding that . . . well, just read the book for his solution to the case, which struck me as being fairly convincing.
If you have read books by other profilers, "The Unknown Darkness" will not offer you a great deal of new information about profiling techniques. However, McRary and his co-author, Katherine Ramsland, manage to tell a gripping story. McCrary's analysis of the Sam Sheppard murder case and the FBI's role in the show down with the Branch Davidians make for especially interesting reading--I can't recall having run across a "profile" of David Koresh or Sam Sheppard in other books of the genre.
The one significant criticism that I have of this book (and indeed of the books by all the other profilers) is that it has a certain "just so" quality to it. Not surprisingly, the book talks about the home runs, the profiles that either did help solve a case or would have helped had the profile been used properly. I'd be curious to know how many "misses" the FBI's BSU produces--in other words, how many profiles are way off the mark? My guess is that the answer is "not many" (these guys seem to know what they're doing), but I'd be curious to see the ratio of hits to misses just to get a better sense of how much of criminal profiling is art and how much is science.
The "pop literature" about criminal profiling is at this point fairly extensive. For further reading, try the following books by alums of the FBI's BSU (keeping in mind that this stuff is pretty grim and best taken in small doses): John Douglas ("Mindhunter," "Obsession," "Journey into Darkness," "The Cases that Haunt Us," and "The Anatomy of Motive"), Roy Hazelwood ("Dark Dreams" and "The Evil That Men Do"), Robert K. Ressler ("I Have Lived in the Monster" and "Whoever Fights Monsters"), and Russell Vorpagel ("Profiles in Murder"). For a British perspective, try Paul Britton's "The Jigsaw Man" and "Picking up the Pieces," both of which are available on Amazon's UK site.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting enough insights, a bit tedious to read, January 1, 2005
I've read just about everything by John Douglas and other books on profiling, and am a bit of a Court TV junkie. This book provides new information and insights into criminal profiling and certain cases than previously available, and for that reason, I'd recommend it for a true crime fan. It provides new information on the Paul Bernardo / Karla Homolka husband and wife serial rape "team", the Buddhist Temple Massacre near Phoenix, and the Waco tragedy. The fact that McCary presents fairly convincing evidence that Karla Homolka was hardly the "battered wife" she's usually presented to be in this highly documented case was the most startling to me.
The problem is the writing is tedious to read at several points, and the chapter on the Waco stand-off seems to go on forever. The book could have used some more work by the editor, as some paragraphs don't really fit together and some of the narrative goes along in a herky jerky fashion. For this reason, I would not recommend this book for someone with just a passing interest in the subject.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
shedding light on the darkness, July 2, 2004
McCrary and Ramsland recount several high-profile cases where psychological profiling has succeeded in solving the crime. All make fascinating reading, but what is probably the most interesting aspect of the book is his harsh assessment of the handling of the Waco standoff with Koresh and his followers. Like a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, McCrary objectively analyzes the evidence and makes a conclusion. His analysis of the Sam Sheppard case has changed my opinion of who the real murderer was.
My only complaint, which at least one other reviewer has stated, is that this book (and all the others written by FBI profilers, for that matter) only focus on the successes, and don't deal with cases where profiling has failed miserably (such as the D.C. sniper case). (...)
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