Journey Into Darkness (Mindhunter #2) by John E. Douglas

Journey Into Darkness (Mindhunter #2) Reviews

• 
  Sara

  The subject matter was a little too dark for me here.
  
  Having read
  Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit, I was intrigued enough to look into some other true crime books by John Douglas. Journey Into Darkness claims to look into the why's of criminal deviant (mainly sexual) behaviour, and offers to explain the inner workings of these criminals minds. Although going into this I knew the descriptions and details of various violent crimes would be intense, I found them a little bit too intense. Crime scenes and acts are picked over in such a way that it made me feel very uneasy - especially the lines regarding young children, although it's undoubtedly interesting if you like reading this kind of thing.
  
  There is also a lot of repetition here. Douglas mentions various issues already discussed in his previous novels, and one particular murder (that of Marine Suzanne Collins) is dissected over three chapters in obsessive detail. There is lots of legal talk that unfortunately I just didn't find that interesting or informative. It felt very disconnected compared to previous chapters.
  
  The book is obviously also very dated. There are no updates of cases after the mid 90s, meaning I often found myself googling things to see if there were any new leads on cases. I don't think it would have taken much effort to include a paragraph here and there with updates etc.
  
  Not as good as his previous.
• 
  Ruthy lavin

  It may seem as though I’m a morbid, death obsessed fan of the macabre when you see my book shelf, but actually I am a novice part time (and mature😉) criminal psychology student who is absolutely fascinated with this subject.... and John Douglas is undoubtedly the best behavioural scientist the world has known so far.
  This book, though harrowing at times, is a fascinating insight into the dark world of criminal profiling and policing.
  It features some high profile cases, some of which were solved and some of which, at the time of writing, they hadn’t managed to solve (but which have been subsequently)
  I am aware that the book was written many years ago and therefore doesn’t offer any current or recent cases, but that really doesn’t matter.
  I found myself reading it slowly, devouring every word, absorbing it, because I didn’t want it to end.
  For those interested in the subject of true crime this is one of the best books I’ve read.
  Easily worthy of 5 stars.
• 
  Mizuki

  Pre-review: It is a re-read (I first read it when I was a teenager)! So happy to see a Taiwanese publisher republished this series after the success of the Mindhunter TV series!
  
  
  (Link:
  https://giphy.com/gifs/netflix-david-...)
  
  PS: I really like the part about
  Edmund Kemper although he is a mother freaking psychopath serial murderer! (The author of this book claims Ed Kemper is the serial killer with the highest IQ and most insight about himself he had encountered.)
  
  
  (Link:
  https://giphy.com/gifs/netflix-david-...)
  
  Rating: 5 full brilliant, disturbing and intriguing stars.
  
  The first thing you should know about this book is: the author, John Douglas, a retired FBI detective and the first generation of detectives who mastered the art of criminal profiling, sure as hell knows his subjects well; and I'm both delighted and thankful to have him sharing his wealth of knowledge with the readers in such a systematical, easily understandable way; even adding in plenty of helpful hints to inform us about the signs of danger and how best to protect ourselves and the children.
  
  What is there to say about serial killers? They are twisted and mostly unsympathetic creatures, but the author wants us to know they are not mad (at least most of them aren't insane) or entirely beyond our understanding. I like all the case studies the author and his fellow FBI detectives had done with these serial killers.
  
  PS: when reading this book I'd gotten rather sick of hearing about pedophiles and what they had done to children. (okay, maybe not every one of them will wind up killing and raping children, but still)
• 
  Ellie

  how has this man managed to get even more egotistical since Mindhunter
• 
  Robert Finnan

  John Douglas may or may not be a great profiler, he certainly seems to think he is and doesn't mind telling the reader so ad nauseum.
  But whatever his merits as a profiler are, his ability to author a coherent, interesting book is nil.
  He constantly loses focus and goes off on tangents completely irrelevant to the subject at hand.
  Three long and boring chapters are devoted to one murder, that of a female Marine.
  He goes into excruciating detail of her family's history in the most stultifying prose it has ever been my misfortune to read.
  On some of the cases, he's also a bit of a Monday morning quarterback, informing the reader that he could have picked the killer, if only he'd been asked.
  So what we have here is a book about an fascinating subject that is rendered as interesting as your Aunt's gall bladder operation story, written by an egomaniac and an incompetent ghostwriter and seemingly edited by a high school teenager.
  
• 
  Alicia

  A great followup to Mind Hunter. I did this as an audio book and really enjoyed it.
  
  Primary focus of this one is child abduction and honestly he gives a lot of good advice on how to prepare your children for the world and ways to teach them safety without scaring them.
  
  Highly recommended if you’re into true crime. 😎
  
• 
  Viencienta

  Fin del bucle, y sí, este libro no está hecho para leerse seguido del anterior, resulta repetitivo, aunque se incorporan otros nuevos. Siempre es instructivo, y cuando enfríe un poco, seguiré con el autor.
• 
  Rafal Jasinski

  Kontynuacja "Mindhuntera" to dosłownie i adekwatnie do tytułu "podróż w ciemność". Jest to lektura wręcz dojmująco przytłaczająca - głównie z powodu tego, że spora jej część dotyczy brutalnych czynów i bestialskich morderstw popełnianych na dzieciach - z której trudno się otrząsnąć. Tak więc wszyscy, pragnący sięgnąć po tę książkę winni wiedzieć na co się piszą... i, nie, nawet seans, bazującego na wątkach i przypadkach tu opisanych, serialu Netfliksa nie jest Was w stanie do końca przygotować na to, z czym zmierzycie się podczas lektury.
  
  Publikacja zawiera interesującą część - "Jak się bronić", w której autor przedstawia szereg cennych porad i obserwacji, które mogą pomóc zapobiec tragedii, wypatrzeć symptomy problemów istniejących w naszym otoczeniu (sąsiedzi, szkoła itp.), jak również nauczyć dzieci zachowań i postrzegania sygnałów, które uchronią je przed niebezpieczeństwem ze strony chcących je skrzywdzić osób.
  
  Na minus, nieco nazbyt rozbudowana część poświęcona Suzanne Marie Collins, marine zamordowanej brutalnie przez psychopatę, w której sprawę John Douglas jest wyraźnie mocno zaangażowany - część, która z zasady streszcza całą biografię ofiary (rozumiem, że sprawić ma to, że głębiej doświadczymy bezmiaru tragedii, jaka się dokonała, ale mimo wszystko - za długo).
  
  Mimo wszystko, książkę polecam. Wszyscy interesujący się zagadnieniami z gatunku true crime i analizą umysłowości seryjnych morderców, oraz - w związku z częścią, która jest swoistym poradnikiem - rodzicom, pragnącym uchronić swoje dzieci przed niebezpieczeństwami z zakresu tematyki tej książki.
• 
  Teodora

  I don't think it is recommended to read the second book in the series before the first one but well here I am right now because I first found this one in the Library and couldn't wait for the first one to get here.
  
  I was too impatient to wait for the first book and I just had to read this one.
  
  This book is just cases explained from a behavior point of view and it was amazing. Nothing more to say. As far as I remember the cases were new to me and there is a deep focus on one particularly sad case that probably really touched John E. Douglas.
  
  The author sounds a little arrogant at times but at this point in non-fiction when there are books about their lives it doesn't even bother me. Like yea, you solved crimes and you can do a behavior profile and you worked there, fuck it, you can be arrogant in my point of view. When you do great things and interesting things, I want to read about that because I don't want to read about boring lives. Mine is boring enough not needed to add to it.
  
  Can't wait to read the first book since I did it the wrong way, but whatever, I do recommend this book to everyone.
• 
  Krystelle Fitzpatrick

  Phew, was this a dip in quality. A massive step down from Mindhunter, this covers more of the cases that Douglas looked into, but ‘looked into’ now means ‘vaguely looked at in any fashion’. There’s some interesting cases in here still, don���t get me wrong, but they’re overshadowed by what feels like it should’ve been a separate instruction manual as to avoiding predators, three chapters dedicated to the same case, and a series of disjointed rants about the death penalty and it’s wonders. I particularly lost it at the ‘most people who have lost someone close advocate for the death penalty’ because I’ve heard very much the opposite from the families of victims- that perhaps they advocate for it initially but once it’s been carried out there’s such a sense of fruitless ness that they begin to campaign the opposite way. This book is a struggle to get through, and it feels far muddier than it’s predecessor.
• 
  Klaudia_p

  Powtórzę za Johnem Douglasem: "(...) jeśli ktoś decyduje się odebrać życie innemu człowiekowi, powinien być gotów zapłacić za to własnym".
• 
  James

  Heartbreaking and gripping. John Douglas recounts several horrific murder cases he helped investigate, focusing on the victims and their families. They're haunting stories, both in the impact of the killings on the families and then in the stress and grief accompanying the convoluted legal processes that sometimes followed, including a series of technical appeals, in a case cinched both by massive physical evidence and by a detailed confession, that had lasted - at the time of writing - more than two decades.
  Dr. Douglas makes a compelling plea for victims' rights to be given a higher priority in the legal system, while being painstakingly clear in spelling out that he is not advocating taking away any of the rights of people accused of crimes. That last point is more emphasized by the story of one case, in which he, other FBI investigators, and police and prosecutors worked to overturn a wrongful conviction when new evidence indicated that a man who was already in prison for a murder was not the perpetrator after all.
  Anyone interested in crime, psychopathology, or victims' rights needs to read this book.
• 
  Shad

  I liked Mindhunter better because the author stuck to what he knew and kept to a tighter structure. This work was less organized and was all over the map on subject matter and purpose.
• 
  The Romance Book Disciple (Samantha)

  Some interesting parts (I especially liked the behavioral deconstruction of the Nicole Brown/Ron Goldman murders) but overall kind of forgettable.
• 
  Black_velvet

  As one famous quote states: “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” But what if you choose to do so? Fight the monsters and take alook into the abyss of human mind.
  
  Very intense and gripping book on real murder cases. And maybe the worst kind of killers - serial killers. How do they think? Do they have certain traits of character? Do they have some experiences in common? And how do people like Mr Douglas feel while hunting these murderers? One can only imagine the high pressure he has to face.
  What I especially enjoyed about this book is the description about how this kind of job influences the personal lives of the fbi agents. How it may torn apart families, how it may ruin your health and mind.
  Highly recommended.
• 
  Andi

  I am sad that I have to give this book two stars.
  
  While it is a lot like the previous book written by John Douglas (Mindhunter), it also ... turns into a self help / how to book on protecting your children.
  
  I can see that John is really passionate about protecting kids - since he mentions countless times throughout the book that some of the cases hit home due to him having a daughter. But, honestly, he spent more about teaching parents how to look out for danger than actually talking about the crimes / stories.
  
  If you're looking for something that reads like a synopsis and step by step through his cases steer clear of this one.
• 
  Chris

  I've always been pretty intrigued by Serial Killers and the people who track them down. If there was a way to get a job tracking them without going through lower law enforcement and the possibility of being stuck in Robbery or Vice or another department I would have made that my career choice.
  
  All told, this is a fascinating book... not for the faint of heart, some of the material is graphic and hard to read.
  
  It is about as close to looking in the face of evil as most people would want to go.
• 
  Mkittysamom

  This was hard to read, especially to watch John suffer. It was great though, he always does a great job telling his story!
• 
  Megan Alabaugh

  Kind of long-winded.
• 
  Miya (severe pain struggles, slower at the moment)

  I think I have read all their books. They are all fantastic. Dark, haunting, chilling and freaking true. These are necessary reads for true crime lovers.
• 
  Angus McKeogh

  Readable. The psychology of murder. A whole new set of cases about murderers and rapists, or a combination of both. As with most of the “soft” sciences there are some foibles. Douglas consults on one case in Toronto and insists the perpetrator is a specific type and the police pursue this lead. They arrest and jail the guy. Years later he’s exonerated by the DNA evidence as technology progresses, but Douglas insists he still believes the guy is guilty and imagines there’s just an error in the DNA evidence. Hmmmm. Not likely.
  
  He also consults on another series of rapes and murders of white women, and despite being told by surviving witnesses that it was a black perpetrator, Douglas insists that the profile supports a white rapist/murderer, because 1) black perpetrators aren’t thought to mutilate or sexually assault women with objects like white guys and 2) the victims are white, so murderers stick with their own race. Hmmmm. You need to be open to changes in your hypothesis as a scientist or the possibility that they are wrong. (i.e. not all serial killers are bedwetters). As with Mindhunter this was a fascinating read but there are certainly variables that need to be adjusted or reconsidered.
  
  There was a short piece at the end about the behavioral profile of the murderer in the Nicole Brown trial. Needless to say, there was all the physical evidence which pointed to O.J.’s guilt; Douglas makes the case that all the behavioral evidence does as well, and outlines why the “conspiracy of racism” theory of the LAPD against O.J. is not supported by the behavioral evidence. It was eye opening. As well as additional physical evidence implicating O.J. that I’d never heard before and wasn’t included in the trial. Overall an interesting read.
• 
  Mummy

  I thought I'd read this before but it quickly became clear I hadn't. What a disappointment. This was meant to be a follow up to Mindhunter and it wasn't really anything like it. It still featured how they caught the perpetrators through profiling and working with the police but focuses on cases he and his colleagues might have looked at or advised on generally rather then helping on in a more focused way or developing profile which is what I enjoyed about Mindhunter.
  
  It was based on lower profile (to the UK anyway maybe not to USA) but more deviant cases which I knew, it was quite repetitive, but thankfully not in huge amounts of detail. Three chapters were completely focused on one case, which looked at the victim from childhood right through to her being murdered and then beyond to her parents fighting for her case in court long after the perpetrator had been convicted. It felt kind of personal and broke up the flow of the book.
  
  All in all if you enjoyed Mindhunter I would skip this one. Anatomy of Motive, which is what I initially confused this with is much better. It goes more into the hows and whys serial killers do things rather then cases generally.
• 
  Peacegal

  Darkness is right. The MINDHUNTER author examines some cases he's worked on, takes an outsiders' forensic view of the Simpson/Goldman murders, advises readers on ways they can protect their families from violent crime, and shares some of his own opinions on controversial legal topics.
  
  Some of the crimes profiled are indeed very, very bad, and are likely to upset readers. I don't think the author does this to be shocking, but rather make readers aware of what kind of violent crime is out there--but some readers may be too taken aback to make this distinction.
• 
  James K

  I love the logical deductions made about a suspect’s personality judging purely from the crime scene they leave behind, and how law enforcement can then predict the suspect’s behaviour pre and post-offense.
  
  Just as fascinating and grim as the first. I particularly enjoyed the chapter about the O.J. Simpson case and am thoroughly convinced about who was guilty. I can’t wait to read about Douglas’ thoughts on other ‘controversial’ or mysterious cases in his other books.
• 
  Lou

  This is darker than Mindhunter, but definitely deeper. I appreciate the detailed manner in which Douglas described the psychology of perpetrators. It makes me understand their behavior, but also how to prevent future cases. Though this book reveals the darkest part of the human behavior, it also gives a unique insight into what we can do for our society. Therefore, I think this book is perfect for parents and any other person who works with children.
• 
  Jenna

  I just went to pick this up via scribd on audio for a readathon and apparently I’ve already listened to this??? and yet I haven’t marked it as read and literally don’t remember it whatsoever??? so uh. whoops.
• 
  Miz

  Strong start but not for the fainthearted - a lot of terrible details which makes it a hard read that you have to keep breathing through. I do feel like that it lost its way part way thru when it became more rambling, but it was an interesting insight to cases pre-Criminal Minds.