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.
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