53 pages 1 hour read

John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker

Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1995

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Key Figures

John Douglas

John Douglas (June 18, 1945–present) is the narrator and one of the authors of Mindhunter. He is a veteran of the United States Air Force and a retired Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Douglas began his illustrious career with the FBI in 1970 and joined the Behavioral Science Unit in 1977. He created the FBI’s Criminal Profiling Program and is seen as one of the forefathers of criminal investigative analysis. He has inspired many fictional characters in television and fiction, such as Jason Gideon and David Rossi in the long-running CBS drama Criminal Minds, and Jack Crawford in Thomas Harris’s novel Silence of the Lambs. Though he has since retired from the FBI, he remains active in the criminal justice community. He has authored numerous books and has worked as a consultant on high-profile cases, such as the West Memphis Three and the murder of Meredith Kercher. Mindhunter has since been adapted into a TV series by Netflix.