The bestselling true crime story that inspired the major Netflix series. FBI special agent and criminal psychological profiling expert John Douglas is a man who has stared evil in the face and made it his mission to understand it. Now retired, Douglas offers us insights into the FBI's elite serial crime unit and the disturbed minds of some of the world's most brutal serial killers. The man who served as inspiration for special agent Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs and provided his expertise to filmmakers explains how he invented and established the practice of criminal psychological profiling; what it was like to mentally immerse himself in the world of serial killers until he became both perpetrator and victim; and individual case stories, including those of Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and the Atlanta child murders. With the gripping power that compels you to keep reading.