The Unknown Darkness: Profiling the Predators Among Us ( Harper Torch True Crimes Series)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

From one of the country's most preeminent criminal profilers comes this gripping, behind-the-scenes account of America's most disturbing and complex serial killer and murder investigations. A former Supervisory Special Agent in the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, Gregg McCrary takes us deep into the minds of the nation's shrewdest and most sinister predators. In The Unknown Darkness, he digs beneath the crime scene to examine in raw first-person detail the lethal competition between the country's deviously dangerous killers and the dedicated professionals who are determined to get them off the streets.

In the basement offices of the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia -- now familiar from the books and films The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal -- McCrary served in one of the most elite forces for criminal investigation in the world, profiling criminals for over twenty-five years in more than a thousand cases involving homicide, serial murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault. He takes us inside his process on some of his most fascinating cases, including:

The Sam Sheppard case -- In revisiting this classic case, what new material did McCrary's analysis discover?The Poet's Shadow -- The strange story of Jack Unterweger and the hunt for an international serial killer that had a bizarre twist.The Buddhist Temple Massacre -- What did the crime scene reveal about the shocking evil that resulted in the deaths of nine gentle people?

The Unknown Darkness also explores the strengths and pitfalls of modern criminal investigation and offers vivid details about what happens at a crime scene, what is actually involved in bringing a killer to justice,and finally what kind of a person is able to devote his or her life to grappling with the predators among us. Daring to relive the often harrowing experiences of his time with the FBI, McCrary has put together an eye-opening account of ten of America's most frightening and riveting manhunts. He has also written an engrossing narrative on our justice system -- from the perspective of someone who has lived it day to day.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In a book that combines engrossing writing with seasoned insight, McCrary, a 25-year veteran of the FBI and a former criminal profiler in the bureau's renowned behavioral science unit, has teamed up with Ramsland, a forensic psychologist and writer, to produce a detailed account of criminal investigative analysis. Describing 10 cases that provoked frenzied storms of media attention in their time-including the kidnapping, videotaped torture and murder of 15-year-old Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy; the senseless massacre of Buddhist monks in Arizona; and the case of Jack Unterweger, a celebrated Austrian writer, who killed numerous prostitutes while vividly covering the story of the murders in the local media-the book offers plenty of shockingly grisly and strange details to fascinate and horrify. But McCrary's levelheaded professionalism and consummate expertise elevates his work above the throng. His refreshingly honest assessment of the standoff between FBI agents and David Koresh's Branch Davidians in Waco, Tex., profiles what he casts as the "groupthink" psychology and self-righteousness that propelled both sides toward calamity, exposing the many similarities shared by bureaucratic and fanatic mentalities. And while his analysis of the famous case of Dr. Sam "The Fugitive" Shepard is less action-jammed than the versions fictionalized on television and in film, it is a worthy exposition. (July) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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