Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI

Robert K. Ressler · Tom Shachtman

May 2015 · Sold by St. Martin's Press

About this ebook

LEARN THE TRUE STORY OF ONE OF THE FBI PROFILERS WHO COINED THE PHRASE "SERIAL KILLER"

Face-to-face with some of America's most terrifying killers, FBI veteran Robert K. Ressler learned how to identify the unknown monsters who walk among us -- and put them behind bars. In Whoever Fights Monsters, Ressler—the inspiration for the character Agent Bill Tench in David Fincher's hit TV show Mindhunter—shows how he was able to track down some of the country's most brutal murderers.

Ressler, the FBI Agent and ex-Army CID colonel who advised Thomas Harris on The Silence of the Lambs, 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. And with his discovery that serial killers share certain violent behaviors, Ressler goes behind prison walls to hear bizarre first-hand stories from countless convicted murderers, including Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy; Edmund Kemper; and Son of Sam. 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 the world's most dangerous psychopaths in this terrifying journey you will not forget.

Ratings and reviews

We get it, you're the smartest crime fighter since, ... well, forever. Its a wonder anyone has ever solved a crime without your help. America has no hope of survival without you on the front lines. Thank you for making the FBI a credible force of goodness.

A tough, but fantastic read. Incredibly informative and also thought provoking. I really enjoyed this book and will be reading another by Mr Ressler quite soon.

Good book on the inner workings of the minds of serial killers and the method used to catch them

About the author

Robert K. Ressler (1937-2013) was a supervisory special agent of the FBI as a reserve colonel in the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) before retiring. He later served as the director of Forensic Behavioral Services, a business dedicated to training, learning, consulting, and expert witness testimony. He is the author of Whoever Fights Monsters and the inspiration for one of the main characters in the Netflix Original Series Mindhunter.

Tom Shachtman is the co-author with Robert Ressler of Whoever Fights Monsters and Justice is Served. He's also the author of several books of history, including How the French Saved America.