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Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI (St. Martin's True Crime Library) |  | Authors: Robert K. Ressler, Thomas Schachtman
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
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Seller: green_earth_books
Rating:  55 reviews
Sales Rank: 16922
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Pages: 289
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.2 x 1
ISBN: 0312950446
Dewey Decimal Number: 363.259523
EAN: 9780312950446
ASIN: 0312950446
Publication Date: March 15, 1993
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
This book is an overview of the career of the FBI man who nearly single-handedly created the system for personality profiling of violent offenders. If there's a big-time multiple murderer from about 1950 until now who hasn't been interviewed by Robert Ressler, he probably refused the honor. Indispensable reading for serial killer mavens, and better written than John Douglas and Mark Olshaker's Mindhunter, this book is packed with fascinating details from dozens of cases: The killer John Joubert, for example, started his life of cruelty as a kid one day when he was riding his bike with a sharpened pencil in his hand. He rode up next to a little girl who was walking, and stabbed her in the back with the pencil. Ouch!
Product Description
Face-to-face with some of America's most terrifying killers, FBI veteran and ex-Army CID colonel Robert Ressler learned form then how to identify the unknown monsters who walk among us--and put them behind bars. Now the man who coined the phrase "serial killer" and advised Thomas Harris on The Silence of the Lambs shows how is able to track down some of today's most brutal murderers.
Just as it happened in The Silence of the Lambs, Ressler used the evidence at a crime scene to put together a psychological profile of the killers. From the victims they choose, to the way they kill, to the often grotesque souvenirs they take with them--Ressler unlocks the identities of these vicious killers of the police to capture.
And with his discovery that serial killers share certain violent behaviors, Ressler's gone behind prison walls to hear the bizarre first-hand stories countless convicted murderers. Getting inside the mind of a killer to understand how and why he kills, is one of the FBI's most effective ways of helping police bring in killers who are still at large.
Join Ressler as he takes you on the hunt for toady's most dangerous psychopaths. It is a terrifying journey you will not forget.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 55
 Get over yourself Ressler! August 11, 2009
A. Stevenson (Southeast Texas)
Good book. As mentioned in another review, can find about the same information in other profiler books.
My problem with the book was all the "I"s in it. My God man, get over yourself. Let your work speak for you.
 Book review January 22, 2009
Thomas D. Crowley (Springfield, VA United States)
The service in attaining this book was fantastic. I would not hesitate to do business with seller agin. First rate service.
Good read if you are interested in crime January 12, 2009
J. M. Flippin (San Juan Capistrano, CA United States)
Excellent book. Fascinating reading if you like true crime... The part that was interesting was his interviews with serial killers and the profiling he did that was so accurate.
Fact Corrections and Updates for WHOEVER FIGHTS MONSTERS December 15, 2008
Lisa Small
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have nothing to add to all the other reviews about Ressler's tone (yes, a bit self-congratulatory at times; but he's a bit entitled) or the other issues which have been raised. What I *can* add is a list of corrections and updates, in hopes some else gets some use out of them. Some are serious, some minor, and some reflect the passage of time since 1992 (executions, or better DNA analysis, etc.)
A. pp.21-22, neither a correction nor an update, but a bit of trivia. Ressler talks about being nine years old and playing dress-up (in trench coats) with his buddies to pretend that they were FBI agents. This story is grossly mischaracterized when retold at p. 298 of a really awful book titled "Programmed to Kill," whose writer asserts that Ressler actually formed a P.I. agency at that time. No, he didn't. He was NINE. I believe Ressler.
B. p. 46, Ressler misquotes killer William Heirens, "Stop me before I kill more." Odd, since he includes the photo which shows Heirens wrote "Catch me before I kill more."
C. p. 112, John Joubert, who killed a paperboy, was executed in Nebraska July 17, 1996.
D. p. 145, Ressler reviews the Central Park "Wilding" case approvingly and compares it to the Lori Roscetti murder in Chicago. However, the "wilding" never happened - it is now used as a textbook example of coerced confessions in high-profile cases. The Central Park case was solved when a single perpetrator, Matias Reyes, acting alone, confessed in 2002. (As it turns out, the Chicago "wilding" never happened, either; see Point E.)
E. p. 146, Ressler writes proudly of the profile he created in the Lori Roscetti case. Unfortunately, the profile inspired the police to extort "confessions" out of four innocent kids, who were finally pardoned in October, 2002, after serving over fifteen years for a crime they did not commit. Two other, unrelated men confessed to the crime, and matched the DNA on her body. See [..]
F. p. 151, Ressler grimly predicts that rapist-kidnapper-blood drinker John Crutchley "will be out in 1998." Wrong - he got out in 1996, even earlier than Ressler had feared. Crutchley's parole was violated almost immediately for using marijuana, and under the "three strikes" provisions of Florida law, he got a mandatory life sentence. He died in prison of auto-erotic asphyxiation in 2002.
G. p. 152 ff. This error is inexplicable. The dead girl is Amy Mihaljevic, yet throughout the chapter, Ressler calls her Mijalevic. He refers to her "outsized earrings and turquoise jumpsuit." The earrings were turquoise, not the suit. Actually, she was wearing a lavender shirt and the bottoms of a green sweatsuit when killed. Bad editing? bad notetaking? It makes me reluctant to cite Ressler for details on other crimes he describes.
H. p. 161, William Hance, who killed three women at two Army bases, was executed in 1994. Carlton Gary, sentenced to death when Ressler wrote in 1992, is still in prison in 2008.
I. pp. 169-170, the murderer Ressler calls "Jack Gall" is identified as "Jack Gaul" in local newspapers at the time (1980). Like Point G above, it makes me hesitate to cite Ressler on details. Names are important.
J. p. 205, mentions Donald Leroy Evans, who in 1991 claimed to have killed more than sixty people. Ressler suggests this might be true, or it could be an attention-getting lie, like Henry Lee Lucas's "confessions." Evans was murdered in prison in 1999 while awaiting execution in Missouri.
K. p. 210, Ressler states John Wayne Gacy spent "several" years in prison on an early sodomy charge. Not several - two. Also re Gacy, p. 212, it's Chicago's Loop, not loop. Also re Gacy, p. 217, his parents were *not* immigrants; his grandparents were, at least on his Polish side. I don't know when his mother's family came over (from Denmark, per Ressler), but his mother was American-born. If you are using immigrant status in your profiling, it would be nice to be accurate about it. Finally re Gacy, p. 230, Gacy was still in appeals when Ressler completed this book. He was executed by Illinois May 10, 1994.
L. p. 245, Jeffrey Dahmer was murdered in prison in 1994 by an inmate named Christopher Scarver.
That's it, except for a few typos (e.g., in the Heirens photo caption, the prison in Illinois should be Stateville, not "Statesville," which is a town in North Carolina). Feminists reading the book will find affirmation on p. 86 (killers taught to objectify women) and and a point of interest on p. 216 (Gacy asserting dating women is too much bother). I take off a star for the inaccuracies above, but am grateful for the index, the photos, the lack of sexism or heterosexism, and the overall non-sensational tone.
The experiences of a profiler. May 17, 2008
Scripture Studier (WI,USA)
"Whoever Fights Monsters" by Robert Ressler can be summed up with a quote from page 125.
"Every ounce of information we can extract from a killer about his mind and methods gives us more ammunition to track the next one."
Mr. Ressler chronicles his career with the military and eventually the FBI.
He is credited with coining the term "serial killer" and he gives the meaning and origin of the term.
In the book the author documents the start of profiling and his unsanctioned venture into prison interviews with violent criminals.
It was risky, but over time has paid off with some candid interviews and useful information for future investigations.
Some of the interview highlights that Mr. Ressler shares in the book come from Edmund Kemper, Charles Manson, Tex Watson, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, and Richard Speck.
He also gives examples of agent-interviewers who got too close emotionally to their subject.
He wrote about the compulsive confessor Henry Lee Lucas who never saw a murder that he wouldn't claim as his work much to the embarrassment of law enforcement agencies throughout the country.
Mr. Ressler's personal view of "Silence of the Lambs" and "Red Dragon" from his experience in the field was educational.
I was impressed with this author's writing style. Profilers have a reputation for being arrogant (whether that's just an impression or valid I wouldn't know) but Mr. Ressler humbly explains mistakes he has made over his career. He is efficient at detailing the psychology of the different types of violent criminals. A good book about criminal profiling!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 55
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