The Anatomy of Motive: The FBI's Legendary Mindhunter Explores the Key to Understanding and Catching Violent Criminals
Written by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker
Narrated by Joe Barrett
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Every crime is a mystery story with a motive at its heart. Understand the motive and you can solve the mystery. The Anatomy of Motive offers a dramatic, insightful look at the development and evolution of the criminal mind. The famed former chief of the FBI's Investigative Support Unit, Douglas was the pioneer of modern behavioral profiling of serial criminals. Working again with acclaimed novelist, journalist, and filmmaker Mark Olshaker, and using cases from his own fabled career as examples, Douglas takes us further than ever before into the dark corners of the minds of arsonists, hijackers, bombers, poisoners, serial and spree killers, and mass murderers.
John E. Douglas
John Douglas, the legendary FBI criminal profiler and veteran author of true crime books, has spent over twenty-five years researching and culling the stories of America’s most disturbing criminals. A veteran of the United States Air Force, he has directly worked and/or had overall supervision in over 5,000 violent crime cases over the past 48 years. He is currently chairman of the board of the “Cold Case Foundation.” One of the foremost experts and investigators of criminal minds and motivations, he currently lives in the Washington, D.C. area. Mark Olshaker is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and author of ten nonfiction books and five novels, including Einstein’s Brain and The Edge. His books with former FBI Special Agent and criminal profiling pioneer John Douglas, beginning with Mindhunter and, most recently, Law & Disorder, have sold millions of copies and have been translated into many languages. Mindhunter is now a dramatic series on Netflix, directed by David Fincher. He and his wife Carolyn, an attorney, live in Washington, D.C.
More audiobooks from John E. Douglas
The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inside the Mind of BTK: The True Story Behind the Thirty-Year Hunt for the Notorious Wichita Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Journey into Darkness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Obsession: The FBI's Legendary Profiler Probes the Psyches of Killers, Rapists, and Stalkers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Anatomy of Motive
Related audiobooks
Obsession: The FBI's Legendary Profiler Probes the Psyches of Killers, Rapists, and Stalkers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dark Dreams: A Legendary FBI Profiler Examines Homicide and the Criminal Mind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Life Among the Serial Killers: Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Name of the Children: An FBI Agent's Relentless Pursuit of the Nation's Worst Predators Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Criminal Shadows: Inside the Mind of the Serial Killer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEvil Thoughts: Wicked Deeds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Making a Psychopath: My Journey into Seven Dangerous Minds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Double Lives: True Tales of the Criminals Next Door Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5America's First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Killer Book of Serial Killers: Incredible Stories, Facts and Trivia from the World of Serial Killers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Evil: The Science Behind Humanity's Dark Side Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Behold the Monster: Confronting America's Most Prolific Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Morgue: A Life in Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5History of a Drowning Boy: The Autobiography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Evil That Men Do: FBI Profiler Roy Hazelwood's Journey into the Minds of Sexual Predators Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Killer's Shadow: The FBI's Hunt for a White Supremacist Serial Killer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When a Killer Calls: A Haunting Story of Murder, Criminal Profiling, and Justice in a Small Town Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bind, Torture, Kill: The Inside Story of BTK, the Serial Killer Next Door Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensics Lab--The Body Farm--Where the Dead Do Tell Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers from the Stone Age to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond the Body Farm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Psychology For You
The Art of Seduction: An Indispensible Primer on the Ultimate Form of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Banish Your Inner Critic: Silence the Voice of Self-Doubt to Unleash Your Creativity and Do Your Best Work Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 48 Laws of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How To Win Friends And Influence People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It Starts with Self-Compassion: A Practical Road Map Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You’re Not the Only One F*cking Up: Breaking the Endless Cycle of Dating Mistakes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed For You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Win Friends and Influence People: Updated For the Next Generation of Leaders Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Garden Within: Where the War with Your Emotions Ends and Your Most Powerful Life Begins Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Create: Tools from Seriously Talented People to Unleash Your Creative Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Anatomy of Motive
216 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Good book, but I’m not a fan of the narrator.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great book. Filled with insights into the minds of criminals and murderers
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book was recommended to me by someone who's family is in law enforcement, after she found out how much I love reading books about serial murderers and profiling. She indicated that this one was not the best from this author, since his first, Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit, was well received. Unfortunately, Mindhunter was not available on Kindle, so I bought this one to read on Kindle while waiting for Mindhunter DTB to arrive.
The beginning of the book was quite interesting, since it gave me some background about the author's education and past experience. He was the first to implement profiling into the US FBI unit. He examined crime scenes and created profiles of the criminals. He studied their work and kill patterns and habitats; predicted their next moves..then built strategies to capture and prosecute them.
Several real and high profile criminal cases were used and explained in detailed in the book, including the Unabomber, the Tylenol Murders and the Green River Killer. They were fascinating to read in the beginning, with one case per chapter. I also learned about some very similar childhood and growing up experiences of those criminals.
However, by the middle of the books, I got tired of the same way the the author kept mentioning about his knowledge, his work and his team, quite repetitive and superficial...I also find the analyses of the motives, the psychological mind and the crimes not deep enough for my background. However, this is a great introductory book for newbies who want to learn about profiling and murdering motives. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The subject of this book is fascinating, but the book is marred by poor writing quality. It's worth reading if you're interested in the topic, but there are better choices out there for an introduction to the topic or for the reader who prefers not to be distracted by bad writing.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5From the first few pages, I was hooked. This stuff is just so fascinating to me. When you read this book, you are getting several decades worth of experience from one of the top FBI agents in the world of criminal profiling. After reading this book, I must say that I will see something on the news and think about what was said in this book. The author does a good job of laying out what type of people are most likely to engage in things like rape, murder, arson, bomb making, etc. Through years and years of interviews with everyone from average convicts to famous serial killers, the author has found certain similarities in the types of people who commit some of these awful crimes. He freely admits that he can't be 100% accurate on every case, but most of the people who commit certain acts can be labeled and categorized based on what occurred in the commission of the crime with relative accuracy. The incident in Scotland when the book begins is a good example of this.One example of something I picked up from the book that is worth noting:Arson - When a place of residence goes up in flames and nobody is hurt, the first thing to look for are personal items that cannot be replaced, such as photographs. If those were removed before the fire, look to the home owners for a possible insurance motive.There are plenty of other things that I picked up as well. Mainly, that there are certain commonalities among the people who commit crimes like arson, mass murder, bomb making, etc. Most people would probably agree that all types of crimes have similarities, but how many of us know what those are? How many people know what the difference between a person with 2 stab wounds and 20 stab wounds is? What about the difference between a body that is posed or covered up versus one that isn't? These questions and more are tackled by the author with great detail. If I could say one thing in regards to this book it is that the author is not speaking from the point of view of a years worth of library research. He didn't read a bunch of case files and try and extrapolate the psycho-babble from the case notes. He actually talked to a lot of very bad people face to face. He played on their egos and personalities to get them to open up to him in ways that they normally wouldn't with him being an FBI agent. This book is the result of years and years worth of face to face conversations with some of the worst human beings to ever walk the planet. I don't know that anyone else could have written this book and managed to make it as believable as John Douglas.If you are a fan of criminal psychology, read this book. Forget the who, what, and how. There's a bunch of "true crime" books out there that cover those issues. This book attempts to answer the "why".
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A must have for any thriller or mystery writer's shelf.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The best dissection of motive of sexual predators and killers to date. Douglas is the foremost authority on murder/rape.