The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

The legendary FBI criminal profiler, number-one New York Times bestselling author, and inspiration for the hit Netflix show Mindhunter delves deep into the lives and crimes of four of the most disturbing and complex predatory killers, offering never-before-revealed details about his profiling process, and divulging the strategies used to crack some of America’s most challenging cases.

The FBI’s pioneer of criminal profiling, former special agent John Douglas, has studied and interviewed many of America’s most notorious killers—including  Charles Manson, ”Son of Sam Killer” David Berkowitz and ”BTK Strangler” Dennis Rader—trained FBI agents and investigators around and the world, and helped educate the country about these deadly predators and how they operate, and has become a legend in popular culture, fictionalized in The Silence of the Lambs and the hit television shows Criminal Minds and Mindhunter.

Twenty years after his famous memoir, the man who literally wrote the book on FBI criminal profiling opens his case files once again. In this riveting work of true crime, he spotlights four of the most diabolical criminals he’s confronted, interviewed and learned from. Going deep into each man’s life and crimes, he outlines the factors that led them to murder and how he used his interrogation skills to expose their means, motives, and true evil. Like the hit Netflix show, The Killer Across the Table is centered around Douglas’ unique interrogation and profiling process. With his longtime collaborator Mark Olshaker, Douglas recounts the chilling encounters with these four killers as he experienced them—revealing for the first time his profile methods in detail. 

Going step by step through his interviews, Douglas explains how he connects each killer’s crimes to the specific conversation, and contrasts these encounters with those of other deadly criminals to show what he learns from each one. In the process, he returns to other famous cases, killers and interviews that have shaped his career, describing how the knowledge he gained from those exchanges helped prepare him for these.

A glimpse into the mind of a man who has pierced the heart of human darkness, The Killer Across the Table unlocks the ultimate mystery of depravity and the techniques and approaches that have countered evil in the name of justice.

From the New York Times bestselling authors of Mindhunter comes their most riveting tale yet . . .

Legendary FBI criminal profiler and former special agent John Douglas has cracked some of America’s most challenging murder cases. The FBI’s pioneer of criminal profiling and the inspiration behind the hit Netflix show Mindhunter, Douglas has spent decades researching, interviewing, and analyzing some of America’s most notorious murderers—including Charles Manson, “Son of Sam Killer” David Berkowitz, and “BTK Strangler” Dennis Rader—while also training FBI agents and investigators from around the world on profiling and interrogating deadly predators.

Now Douglas, along with his longtime collaborator Mark Olshaker, turns his keen eye on four of the most disturbing killers he has confronted. Offering never-before-revealed details about his profiling process, Douglas goes step by step through his encounters with these murderers, connecting each predator’s crimes to his conversation with them and showing how he used his interrogation skills to expose their true evil. He also returns to other famous cases he’s worked on, describing how the knowledge he gained from those conversations helped prepare him for these.

Fascinating and haunting, The Killer Across the Table unlocks the ultimate mysteries behind these depraved killers, revealing the psychology that led them into darkness.