compares history and methods of profiling to use in TV show "Criminal Minds"

The problem with this book is that the audience for it is surprisingly specific. If you're new to criminology and want an overview of profiling, this is a pretty solid choice: comprehensive, but still approachable. If you're interested in it because you're a "Criminal Minds" fan, you're likely to be disappointed: after the first chapter, most of the ties to the show are just the author presenting various cases and mentioning which episodes they inspired. There's a few points where Ramsland compares techniques used on the show to their real life applications, but those are few and far between.

If you're interested in it because you like to read criminology books, then you can easily skip 2/3 of this one without missing anything--up to chapter 9, there was nothing I hadn't already picked up from reading books by John Douglas and his former colleagues. And if you're interested in specific cases, you're actually not going to learn a lot here. Ramsland is mostly providing condensed summaries of what Douglas and company have in their books. You're better off going straight to the source and reading their first-hand accounts--you'll get a lot more insight into the cases by hearing how each agent approached them and applied specific profiling techniques.

This isn't a bad book, but unless you're in that specific audience, it's highly skimmable. ( )

A pretty decent study of criminal profiling, covering its history as well as its current status, and its errors as well as its triumphs. However, the book has VERY little to do with the Criminal Minds TV show. The show isn't discussed in detail and sometimes many pages will go by without it being mentioned at all. People wanting to read about the TV show will be disappointed. Fortunately I've only seen a few episodes and I got the book to learn about criminal profiling, and so it suited my needs. ( )