Mark Olshaker – författare

Är du besatt av Netflix-serien "Mindhunter"? Läs den sanna historien om hur två FBI-agenters arbete i ett mörkt källarkontor växte till en av byråns elitavdelningar. Följ med bakom kulisserna i några av de blodigaste och mest komplicerade fallen i USA:s historia.

Under sin tjugofemåriga FBI-karriär blev agenten John Douglas legendarisk, och jagade några av vår tids mest ökända och sadistiska seriemördare: barnamördaren i Atlanta och Green River-mördaren i Seattle. Douglas har konfronterat, förhört och studerat en lång rad seriemördare och lönnmördare, exempelvis Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy och Ed Gein, mannen som klädde sig själv i sina offers avskalade hud. John Douglas använde psykologisk profilering för att sätta sig in i hur de mest ökända seriemördarna och brottslingarna tänkte för att förstå deras agerande och förhindra fler oskyldiga offer.

The legendary FBI criminal profiler, number-one New York Times bestselling author, and inspiration for the hit Netflix show Mindhunter delves deep into the lives and crimes of four of the most disturbing and complex predatory killers, offering never-before-revealed details about his profiling process, and divulging the strategies used to crack some of America’s most challenging cases.The FBI’s pioneer of criminal profiling, former special agent John Douglas, has studied and interviewed many of America’s most notorious killers—including  Charles Manson, ”Son of Sam Killer” David Berkowitz and ”BTK Strangler” Dennis Rader—trained FBI agents and investigators around and the world, and helped educate the country about these deadly predators and how they operate, and has become a legend in popular culture, fictionalized in The Silence of the Lambs and the hit television shows Criminal Minds and Mindhunter.

Twenty years after his famous memoir, the man who literally wrote the book on FBI criminal profiling opens his case files once again. In this riveting work of true crime, he spotlights four of the most diabolical criminals he’s confronted, interviewed and learned from. Going deep into each man’s life and crimes, he outlines the factors that led them to murder and how he used his interrogation skills to expose their means, motives, and true evil. Like the hit Netflix show, The Killer Across the Table is centered around Douglas’ unique interrogation and profiling process. With his longtime collaborator Mark Olshaker, Douglas recounts the chilling encounters with these four killers as he experienced them—revealing for the first time his profile methods in detail. 

Going step by step through his interviews, Douglas explains how he connects each killer’s crimes to the specific conversation, and contrasts these encounters with those of other deadly criminals to show what he learns from each one. In the process, he returns to other famous cases, killers and interviews that have shaped his career, describing how the knowledge he gained from those exchanges helped prepare him for these.

A glimpse into the mind of a man who has pierced the heart of human darkness, The Killer Across the Table unlocks the ultimate mystery of depravity and the techniques and approaches that have countered evil in the name of justice.

The legendary FBI criminal profiler and international bestselling author of Mindhunter and The Killer Across the Table returns with this timely, relevant book that goes to the heart of extremism and domestic terrorism, examining in-depth his chilling pursuit of, and eventual prison confrontation with Joseph Paul Franklin, a White Nationalist serial killer and one of the most disturbing psychopaths he has ever encountered.Worshippers stream out of an Midwestern synagogue after sabbath services, unaware that only a hundred yards away, an expert marksman and  avowed racist, antisemite and member of the Ku Klux Klan, patiently awaits, his hunting rifle at the ready. 

 The October 8, 1977 shooting was a forerunner to the tragedies and divisiveness that plague us today. John Douglas, the FBI’s pioneering, first full-time criminal profiler, hunted the shooter—a white supremacist named Joseph Paul Franklin, whose Nazi-inspired beliefs propelled a three-year reign of terror across the United States, targeting African Americans, Jews, and interracial couples. In addition, Franklin bombed the home of Jewish leader Morris Amitay, shot and paralyzed Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, and seriously wounded civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. The fugitive supported his murderous spree robbing banks in five states, from Georgia to Ohio.

 Douglas and his writing partner Mark Olshaker return to this disturbing case that reached the highest levels of the Bureau, which was fearful Franklin would become a presidential assassin—and haunted him for years to come as the threat of copycat domestic terrorist killers increasingly became a reality. Detailing the dogged pursuit of Franklin that employed profiling, psychology and meticulous detective work, Douglas and Olshaker relate how the case was a make-or-break test for the still-experimental behavioral science unit and revealed a new type of, determined, mission-driven serial killer whose only motivation was hate.

A riveting, cautionary tale rooted in history that continues to echo today, The Killer''s Shadow is a terrifying and essential exploration of the criminal personality  in the vile grip of extremism and what happens when rage-filled speech evolves into deadly action and hatred of the “other" is allowed full reign.

 The Killer''s Shadow includes an 8-page color photo insert.

From John Douglas—the legendary FBI criminal profiler, #1 New York Times bestselling author, and inspiration for the Netflix show Mindhunter—comes a chilling journey inside the mind and crimes of Larry Gene Bell, one of the most dangerous serial killers Douglas confronted, and the desperate effort to identify and catch him.

On May 31, 1985, two days before her high school graduation, Shari Smith was abducted from the driveway of her family home in South Carolina. Based on the crime scene and the abductor’s repeated and taunting calls to the family, law enforcement quickly realized they were dealing with a sophisticated and highly dangerous criminal. A letter arrived the next day entitled “Last Will & Testament,” in which Shari, knowing she was to be murdered, wrote bravely and achingly of her love for her parents, siblings, and boyfriend, saying that while they would miss her, she knew they would persevere through their faith. The abduction rocked her quiet town, triggering a massive manhunt and bringing in the FBI, which enlisted profiler John Douglas. A few days later, a phone call told the family where they could find Shari’s body.

Then nine-year-old Debra May Helmick was kidnapped from her yard, confirming the harsh realization that Smith’s murder was no random act. A serial killer was evolving, and the only way to stop him would be to use the study of criminal behavior to anticipate his next move before he could kill again. Douglas devised a risky and emotionally fraught strategy to use Shari’s lookalike older sister Dawn as bait to draw out the unknown subject. Dawn and her parents courageously agreed.

One of the most haunting investigations of Douglas’s storied career, this case details how the eerily accurate profile he created—alongside his carefully crafted and stage-managed manipulation of the killer’s psychology—combined with dedicated police work and cutting-edge forensic science to end a reign of criminal terror. As Shari’s family took incredible personal risks to lure her killer from the shadows, Douglas and the FBI pushed criminal profiling to its limits, culminating in one of his most dramatic and effective confrontations with a sadistic and remorseless killer.

The legendary FBI criminal profiler and inspiration for the hit Netflix show Mindhunter offers a personal look into the workings of the justice system.“At the top of his form.” —James Patterson For the first time since his retirement, the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Killer Across the Table and The Killer’s Shadow teams up with award-winning author Mark Olshaker to delve into his most notorious and baffling cases, showing what it’s like to confront evil in its most monstrous form. No one is better acquainted with the subject of humanity’s most notorious crimes and the wrenching challenges of bringing those criminals to justice than John Douglas, the model for Agent Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs.In this provocative and deeply personal book, the most prominent criminal investigator of our time recounts his twenty-five-year FBI career tracking down master criminals, writing true crime bestsellers, and developing forensic science and the art of criminal profiling. In his earlier works, Douglas wrote only about the guilty; in Law & Disorder, he writes about the guilty, innocents accused, and even innocents convicted as he addresses every law enforcement professional’s worst nightmare: those cases where, for one reason or another, justice was delayed . . . or even denied. A deep glimpse into the mind of a man who has explored the heart of human darkness, he looks tounlock for his readers the ultimate mystery of depravity and the techniques and approaches that have countered evil in the name of justice throughout his career. “An essential title for those interested in true crime stories, forensic science, or law enforcement.” —Library Journal (starred review)