Manhunters: Criminal Profilers and Their Search for the World’s Most Wanted Serial Killers

Not for the faint of heart! Very insightful (eerily so...) into the how's and why's of the way serial killers develop from childhood. Had to stop reading a few times due to the inherently disturbing nature of the book. However, it delved deeper into sociopathic personality types than does 48 Hours or Dateline and was worth the reading.

Again, let me clarify. I am an avid Colin Wilson fan. I own and have read all of his books. I have met him, have autographs and a friend of mine interviewed him in Holland many years ago. His vision is extraordinary and insights are fantastic. I have learned a great deal from reading his work and agree with his views on the possibility of higher realms, etc.When I first saw this book was being released and received it yesterday. It is hardback and beautiful, however, it is a complete reprint, from what I can tell, of his other book Serial Killer Investigations released several years ago. There was no mention of this in the description of the book and at first I thought that it might be a a reprint. However thinking the best ordered it thinking that it may expand the subject matter of serial killers even further than Colin's other work. Alas I was wrong it is a complete reprint and inside it does state text as 2007.This is not the first time that I have purchased books of Colin Wilson published under different titles, however, they are just copies of previous issues. I wish this would stop. Perhaps it is a publisher's decision to do such and perhaps the 2007 book is out of print. It should be stated in the the description that the book is a reprint of a previously published work with a different titleI highly recommend the book for those interested in the subject matter. It is an incredible investigation and a great read on this subject.

I would probably give it 2.5 stars. Rounded down because evidently this is a shameless reprint of a previous book with a different title to make it appear it was new. That's pretty shameful business.Manhunters is a very comprehensive look at different serial killers, mainly those in the United States in the 20th century (though a chapter at the end is devoted to killers in other countries). There is talk about most of the notorious killers you've heard of, plus many you'll probably be surprised to hear you haven't (Charles Ng, Fred West, Dean Corrl). It's somewhat organized, a somewhat chronological order and loosely organized into chapters based on motives or categories. The book is also threaded together by details on the development of psychological profiling and other technique to find serial killers. It's a bit odd that some mentions about killers are a very brief paragraph and others go on for a very long time and you're never quite aware of which way it will go. The author has written extensively about serial killers before and does seem fairly knowledgeable about the subject. Overall, it's a decent introduction to dozens and dozens of different cases.From a logical side, I had some big problems though. Things seemed very...unscientific.1) He thinks every serial killer is sexually motivated. "Every" is not an exaggeration there, he considers it a prerequisite to being a serial killer. He even assumes that a doctor that did nothing sexual and just overdosed his patients on morphine to be sexually motivated. He embraces a lot of Freud theories that are widely discredited in psychology today.2) He doesn't really explain psychological profiling or other modern procedures at all. He always relies on it being some panacea for crime and psychological profiling is a really interesting topic to me, but he doesn't explain the logic behind it all. You hear some amazing hits that profilers have made, but there's no explanation of the reasoning. Things just feel like "cold reading", the same process that bogus psychics use to appear to talk to the dead. A profiler will say that the killer probably owns a "police-like dog" or is "redheaded" among several other details. A lot of these end up being amazing descriptions, but you get no statistics about what these people based their guesses on or how accurate they actually were. It could very easily be a case of cherry picking. I'm sure there is more logic going into the process, but you get none of that here. It just feels like a lot of gut instincts.3) He keeps talking about serial killing being an "epidemic" in the 20th century and something that never happened in civilization before, like it's a completely unique and new phenomenon. This is a theme he touches on again and again. He never acknowledges that today: record keeping is better (so we are actually aware of repeat killers) or that police methods are better (so serial killings can actually be linked). The truth of the matter is that homicide rate is at an all-time low in society today. The Boston Strangler or John Wayne Gacy may always be oddities, but it's weird to say that people that deranged were never around during the dark ages or the wild west.4) There are 2 things we mentions that are so ridiculously unscientific, that I would not have read the book had I known the author believed in them. He mentions that the Gainesville Ripper claimed to be possessed by demons. The author actually believes that is true. Not like "the guy thought he heard voices and was crazy" explanation, but that the man was literally under the control of a supernatural entity. His justification? One time, the Ripper claimed to pray to the demon that possessed him and magically found a door to be unlocked. The idea that he endorses this theory is ridiculous (the jury in the case ignored it because the demon's name was "Gemini" and they knew that the killer happened to be a fan of Exorcist III, where the killer was named the "Gemini Killer", the author never brings this up). The other absurd thing he says is in the epilogue. He goes on a completely irrelevant rant about "biomorphic fields", which is a pseudoscience that is basically equivalent to telepathy. He says this is why we may see a decrease in the rate of serial killing in the future and references a few cases with lab mice, as though this is an idea that the scientific community actually respects. It's such a nonsense idea, I wish that I knew the author believed that ahead of time so it saved me the time of listening to anything he had to say.I listened to it on Audible. The narrator was decent. He kinda sounds like he always has a throat lozenge or cough drop in his mouth, which actually isn't too bad. He doesn't have to do a lot of different voices, which tends to be the worst part about narrations in my opinion.

Jumping around from victims to killer to profiler...hard to track. Info was solid but feel the writing style was not clear to the reader or the author.

I returned it the same day I bought. This is a reprint of a past book I already owned. Its just retitled and repackaged. Mr.Wilson this is not how you keep your fans

Insanely disturbing. After a couple chapters I returned book/tape. If you are looking for a book about 'profiling' this isn't it.

When it comes to True Crime, no one does it better than Colin Wilson. I discovered the author several years ago and have purchased many of his books. As someone fascinated by criminology Wilson is the go to source of information. What I enjoy the most about his books is not only his thorough research but his obvious love of the topic. This volume is more of Wilson's case history studies of mankind's wickedness. Covering a large period, Wilson goes back to the 50's and starts by covering some of the more well-known criminal cases. Endlessly fascinating Wilson tackles the subject head-on and covers plenty of ground here. I always feel like the author is sitting beside me and that he is discussing his favorite subject matter with me. Always the expert but he doesn't dumb down the material. First class and enjoyable!

This is quite a good book. I have found it very useful and continue to refer to it