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    Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI
    Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI
    Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI
    Audiobook11 hours

    Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI

    Written by Robert K. Ressler and Tom Shachtman

    Narrated by Tom Perkins

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    About this audiobook

    Face-to-face with some of America's most terrifying killers, FBI veteran and ex-Army CID colonel Robert Ressler learned from them how to identify the unknown monsters who walk among us-and put them behind bars. Now the man who coined the phrase "serial killer" and advised Thomas Harris on The Silence of the Lambs shows how he has tracked down some of the nation's most brutal murderers.

    Just as it happened in The Silence of the Lambs, Ressler uses the evidence at a crime scene to put together a psychological profile of the killers. From the victims they choose, to the way they kill, to the often grotesque souvenirs they take with them, Ressler unlocks the identities of these vicious killers for the police to capture.

    Join Ressler as he takes you on the hunt for America's most dangerous psychopaths. It is a terrifying journey you will not forget.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJul 26, 2016
    ISBN9781515978954
    Author

    Robert K. Ressler

    Robert K. Ressler (1937-2013) was a supervisory special agent of the FBI as a reserve colonel in the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) before retiring. He later served as the director of Forensic Behavioral Services, a business dedicated to training, learning, consulting, and expert witness testimony. He is the author of Whoever Fights Monsters and the inspiration for one of the main characters in the Netflix Original Series Mindhunter.

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    Reviews for Whoever Fights Monsters

    4/5

    187 ratings9 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is another of those books that has been on my to-read list for a long time. As noted above, Robert Ressler has been tracking serial killers with the FBI for 20 years and his experience shows. He is rather humble and admits that ‘Profilers don’t catch killers. Cops catch killers.’ Profiling is just a tool to help them.This book is part auto-biography and part the history of profiling. The auto-biography part is not extensive, just enough to let you know how Mr. Ressler got into the FBI and why he holds some of the opinions he does.He details the work he initiated in interviewing serial killers and how they differ. He also gives brief histories of some cases, some very well known, Dahmer and Gacy, and some that I hadn’t heard of, which of course means, more books to read!This was a very easy (well despite the subject matter) book to read. It has a nice conversational style, informative, and not at all boring. I recommend this book.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Excellent book, didn’t want to miss a word so I hit rewind after the slightest distraction. If you’re an avid reader of criminal nonfiction, especially about serial killers, you’ll be fascinated to hear how the FBI BAU was first formed. Kessler is...not afraid to toot his own horn. It’s a little intense sometimes in that way. But I suppose that someone who has made such a brilliant and dogged contribution to society while not often being trusted, appreciated or supported has every right to spell out that contribution. Bottom line about the book; it’s highly accessible while being well developed, nuanced, and intended for the reader with some familiarity with the subject matter. Good stuff.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      It was fascinating to hear the reality behind such a sensationalized topic. Ressler has a logic, curious, and compassionate approach to these horrible crimes. His influence on our understanding of the criminal mind is so vast it's hard to comprehend. I loved reading about his first hand experiences and seeing his insights.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this man's knowledge and how he shared it. Bravo!
    • 2/5
      Interesting as a source document. Thomas Harris started the serial killer boom with Silence of the Lambs, that snowballed into CSI, Profiler, Criminal Minds, etc. So Robert Ressler's Whoever Fights Monsters and John Douglas's Mindhunter can be considered the core nonfiction texts.

      At best, profiling is a craft of educated guesswork. At worst, it's pseudoscientific cold-reading, confirmation bias, Texas sharpshooting. It's almost refreshing how Ressler has no compunctions about patting himself on the back, outwitting ass-covering bureaucrats, small-minded local cops, and the killers themselves.

      There's a passage near the end:
      In recent years, the hue and cry about profiling, and the misinterpretation of it as well as of what the Bureau legitimately does, has continued to increase. The media have come around to lionizing behavioral-science people as supersleuths who put all other police to shame and solve cases where others have failed.
      But the entire book goes against this uncharacteristic humility. Ressler recounts how, after hours at a bar, because some Brits challenged them, he and Douglas worked up an off-the-cuff profile for the Yorkshire Ripper. Probably could've caught him too, if the regs had allowed it, beer in hand and all that.
    • 4/5
      Maybe more of a 3 1/2 stars, but this is an engaging and super comprehensive true crime book, with a really solid audio.
    • 3/5
      A book that goes inside the serial killers' way of thinking. However, I believe that this book had the potential to be a slam dunk, but it just wasn't. The author glossed over many details that may have been interesting to the reader. Still, the interviews with the killers was somewhat interesting. To me, however, it seemed that the author missed something along the way.
    • 4/5
      True accounts from a genuine criminal profiler. How he works and what clues he finds significant in solving a crime. An interesting read.
    • 4/5
      7/10. Did not finish reading it. Got too dense and boring. Needed better writing and editing. But, it is by Robert K. Ressler, the original FBI profiler. And also written with Tom Schachtman.