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61 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ashamed of our serial killers? Ressler reminds us, January 25, 2005
This review is from: Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI (Mass Market Paperback)
For those of you who are not big fans of serial killers and the people who catch them (or at least won't admit it publicly), Bob Ressler is the guy who invented the term "Serial Killer" and helped usher in a new understanding of repeat criminals and why they do what they do. The citizens of the U.S. owe a lot to Bob. So does Thomas Harris, who interviewed him extensively for Manhunter and Silence of the Lambs.
Alas, truth is stranger than fiction, and the tales Ressler tells are positively awful. There' just one problem: we've heard all of this before.
Where? That'd be "Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit," by John E. Douglas, a man I can only assume was Ressler's protégé. It's a bit murky as to their relationship (the two reference each other, but not often). The parallels are unmistakable-it's interesting to read the opinions of two different people interviewing the same serial killer.
For example, Douglas has a bit of a creepy admiration for Ed Kemper. Kemper had a diabolical mind that he put to good use, such that eventually he figured out why he was killing women: because he hated his mother. So Kemper did what every good serial killer would do in such a situation...he killed her too. His murders "finished," Kemper called the police and gave himself up.
That little story is from Douglas' point of view. It almost makes Kemper out to be a sympathetic figure. A six-foot tall, 300 pound sympathetic figure, but sympathetic nonetheless.
Ressler is not so kind. Ressler interviews Kemper alone at one point. Having finished the interview, Ressler rings for the guard...but nobody comes. Sensing his discomfort, Kemper explains how he could probably screw Ressler's head off with his bare hands and nobody would be able to do anything about it. Kemper goes on to explain how he has nothing to lose and how, by killing an FBI agent, he'd get quite a bit of "prison cred." Fortunately, Ressler keeps a cool head (and keeps his head) by playing the little mind game right back at the massive serial killer until the guards escort him out.
"You know I was only kidding, right?" says Kemper, putting a hand on Ressler's shoulder.
Whoever Fights Monsters is a lot like that. It simultaneously takes on tough subjects, summarizes them from a clinical perspective, and then reminds you-sometimes quite sternly-that these people are murderers. Where Douglas tends to talk about himself and the heavy toll that dealing with serial killers took on his own personal psyche, Ressler is much more detached and observant. Douglas advocates the death penalty, Ressler does not. Douglas embraces the glory and publicity of being a trailblazer in his field, Ressler worries about the depersonalization of the victims and the celebrity-status of the killers themselves. Who's right?
There are no right answers here. Of the two books, Douglas' is more entertaining because he chooses to be more dramatic. The two books track each other very closely, such that if you've read one, you probably don't need to read the other one. Unlike Douglas' book, Ressler admits when he makes mistakes. He also goes into more detail as to the method and process of profiling, which is why I originally bought both books. But it's simply not as exciting a read.
Nevertheless, Ressler's tale is an important one: serial killers are mistakes. They're the results of terrible human failings and something to be ashamed off, not celebrated. In that respect, Ressler's story is a more socially responsible (if not as thrilling) examination of the worst humanity has to offer.
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"...for whose cause this evil is upon us", July 6, 2005
This review is from: Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI (Mass Market Paperback)
Robert K. Ressler left the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit twelve years ago to venture into private practice as a criminologist. He retired with thirty years of investigative experience (ten with the U.S. Army's CID and twenty with the FBI, many of them as director of the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP)). This book is one of his many attempts to speak from the belly of the monster that has devoured him...in fact the book that follows this one is actually called "I Have Lived in the Monster."
"Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice." (Jonah 2:2)
So what does our modern-day prophet, Robert K. Ressler cry out of the belly of the beast?
Credit for coining the phrase "serial killer" is commonly (and mistakenly) given to Ressler, one of the founding members of the FBI's elite Behavioral Science Unit. Along with his colleague John Douglas, Ressler also served as a model for the character 'Jack Crawford' in Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter trilogy.
"Whoever Fights Monsters" is subtitled "My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI" and if you read true crime books, you will recognize many of the monsters that Ressler describes and interviews. A miscellaneous look at the photo captions will give you an idea of whose minds he attempted to probe:
* "One of two blenders used by the Sacramento 'Vampire Killer'... to prepare human blood and organs for ingesting to 'stop his blood from turning to powder'"
* "Tattoos on the arm of Richard Speck, which led to his arrest in the murders of eight women in Chicago in 1966"
* "Photograph taken of the leg of a Brudos victim. This captures the essence of his bizarre fetish fantasies--women's feet in high-heeled shoes"
A well-known review service complains that "as deeply as Ressler gets into killers' heads...he refused to reveal much of his own here, offering no explanation ... for why he's devoted his life to a calling so dire and soul-wearing..."
Actually, I believe Ressler reveals quite a bit of himself in his books. I read him as a man who is easy to admire, but hard to like. I'm sure some of the other law enforcement officers who had to work with him found his techniques and pronouncements a bit grating. They might have also gotten the notion that he was hogging the limelight. Ressler does not keep quiet about crime scenes where he thinks the cops screwed up, and uses the 'fiasco' of Henry Lucas's murder confessions as an example of bad police work. Two reporters working for the "Dallas Times" finally did the spadework on Lucas's stories and determined that he couldn't possibly have killed the hundreds of the victims he claimed to have done in. Sometimes he wasn't even physically in the state, e.g. Florida, when the victim was murdered. By the time the dust had settled, and Ressler interviewed Lucas, the con admitted that he had killed "fewer than ten, perhaps five."
One of the services that I wouldn't trust anyone but Ressler (and maybe a few others) to perform is to interview serial killers and determine the 'how' and 'why' of what they did. Ressler describes a few cases where his testimony tipped the balance as to whether a former killer who has served his time, should be paroled. It seems as though the psychopathic personality is good at fooling parole boards and psychologists by the depth of his remorse, and by his long stretch of sterling behavior in prison (during his first incarceration, John Wayne Gacy started up a prison branch of the JayCees)---but the psychopath doesn't fool Ressler at all. He's gotten into the hearts and minds of too many of them.
One of the definitions of 'prophet' is "a person gifted with profound moral insight and exceptional powers of expression...a predictor; a soothsayer."
We may not want to listen to this prickly prophet Ressler, who speaks of demons in our midst, and who predicts their behavior if they are sent back out into society. But for the sake of our loved ones and friends, we really should listen.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For the True Student of Crime,Invaluble, January 24, 2000
This review is from: Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI (Mass Market Paperback)
This is the only book that a student of serial killers will ever need-the others are only case studies.Ressler gives the basic tools and terminology used to classify serial murderers and real life examples of the categories given.This book is a nice mix of an overview of the subject and an explanation of the science used to catch the killers.I found myself analyzing other killers using the same method Ressler teaches.Sadly,it is now hard for me to read books about serial murderers as I usually have them categorized within a chapter or two.This book avoids the sensationalism inherent to the subject,and is by far the best one of its kind that I have found.
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