The
Killer’s Shadow
allows readers an inside look at how John Douglas, legendary
FBI profiler, came to help profile Joseph Paul Franklin and
how accurate his initial profile was after meeting this serial
killer. Franklin went around the country forty years ago and
killed people due to his beliefs of how whites and blacks
should not mix. Franklin went beyond what KKK and other white
supremacist groups have done.
The Killer’s Shadow is not set up like most
other true crime novels. It does not give all of the details
of Franklin’s crime and then the pursuit of finding
him. Instead it focuses more on how Douglas profiled Franklin
and how accurate that profile was. Douglas states that even
the profiling was done differently because he was provided
with Franklin’s information. For most cases, he is given
the details of the crime(s) and then asked to create a profile
about who might have been the culprit. Douglas and Olshaker
intertwine other cases they have worked on throughout, which
adds to complexity of the FBI profiler team.
As
a fan of true crime and an interest in forensic psychology,
I found The Killer’s Shadow to be a different and more
realistic take on true crime novels. Anyone who is interested
in the field, should pick this up and look at a case from
one of the original FBI profilers. What is scary is that people
like Franklin still exist in today’s world.
|