Profiles In Murder [Hardcover]

Russell Vorpagel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 21, 1998

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 crimes, and police cover-ups. Vorpagel - the hard-boiled detective, yet disarmingly engaging guide - takes us back in time to the actual scenes of the crime. His infectious enthusiasm not only inspires us to adopt his brilliant detective mindset and sleight-of-hand logic, but draws us in to experience the unbridled euphoria of crime solving. We even get all the chilling details of the true heart-pounding story of extremist Rastafarians plotting to assassinate Vorpagel himself. Vorpagel's close brush with death as related in his minute-by-minute account so shocks the reader, it leaves him breathless.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Profiler" Russell Vorpagel looks back at a career that encompasses some of the most horrific crimes in the FBI's files. The gruesome accounts throughout the book--from the former mental patient who eviscerated his victims and drank their blood because he believed that his own blood was turning to powder, to the middle-aged woman found half-naked amid strewn sex toys in a burning house--are held together by the framework of a class taught by Vorpagel to students (including police officers, FBI agents, and attorneys) trying to learn more about how he and other FBI profilers analyze a crime scene and determine, with sometimes frightening accuracy, what sort of person did it. The techniques used by Vorpagel and his associates allow them to determine the age, sex, race, physical appearance, and habits of some of the most deranged killers so accurately that several suspects have been identified based almost exclusively on their profiles. The book is a fascinating and often disturbing glimpse into the minds of people who kill for reasons most of us can't even fathom. --Lisa Higgins

From Publishers Weekly

At FBI headquarters during the 1970s, Vorpagel, Ressler and other members of the Behavioral Science Unit formalized their techniques of profiling serial killers, an approach to criminology brought to public attention through Thomas Harris's 1988 bestseller, The Silence of the Lambs, and Jonathan Demme's 1991 Oscar-winning film adaptation. Using the analysis of a crime scene, a profiler tries to predict a murderer's mind-set, habits, background and appearance. When the Behavioral Science Unit was created, the FBI set out to establish patterns by studying as many mass murderers, bombers, rapists and serial killers as possible; hundreds of case histories were established through interviews, many conducted by Vorpagel, who looked into fantasies, family, sex, work, fears, goals and other aspects until "a pattern began to emerge in the personality of a crime and its scene." For many years, on assignment with the FBI, Vorpagel taught his techniques in police academies and military armories nationwide. Told in the third person and padded with pages of dialogue in an attempt to duplicate instructor-student interaction, this is largely a re-creation of past cases with only a superficial skim of the history and inner workings of the Behavioral Science Unit. The result often comes across like fiction (or a pitch for a hoped-for TV series), which undercuts credibility to a degree. Although the book does offer case histories not found elsewhere, readers looking for the sort of insights into twisted criminal minds revealed by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker in their recent Obsession will be disappointed. Photos.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (August 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306459809
• ISBN-13: 978-0306459801
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,579,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great content, miserable presentation--, March 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Profiles In Murder (Hardcover)

As a student of forensic psychology I found the content informative, fascinating, and a great take-off point for further research and study. However, I must take GREAT issue with the manner in which this book was authored. Apparently an editor's pen has never been set to this manuscript in that it was one of the most poorly written books I have ever had to fight through. Replete with spelling and grammatical errors, confusing and clumsy fake-verbatim dialogue, I found the writing obscured the subject more than illuminated it. All in all, this is an annoying, rambling and tangential third-person account of what should have been an exciting, concise first-person narrative. My advice: Read it for the information, but if ever you need a ghost writer yourself, avoid the one chosen by Mr. Vorpagel.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't Put It Down!, June 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Profiles In Murder (Hardcover)

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.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Russell Vorpagel's Profiles In Murder, June 25, 2000

By 

Melissa Solomon (Victoria, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Profiles In Murder (Hardcover)

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.