Between Good and Evil: A Master Profiler's Hunt for Society's Most Violent Predators

What an excellent book. Besides what has already been said, it is extremely well written and not self-indulgent in the least. It is easily as good as John Douglas's books and maybe better, from a different standpoint. It's more autobiographical, as opposed to a case by case study. For those of us who enjoy this subject, you won't be disappointed.

TV and film have romanticized the men who are able to profile serial killers. Men who are able to get inside the heads of these criminals and know their motivations and use those to track and eventually capture them. But what is the emotional toll for dealing the the day-to-day horror of this job? It's hardly glamorous. They've seen things and more importantly, have to solve things that would drive the average person to flee in stark terror. Roger Depue wasn't just a profiler, he was one of the profilers of the science. He is the one who helped write the book on the science of tracking these people down. His accounts are exciting, horrifying, fulfilling, and deeply depressing. This was work so overwhelming that DePue actually left the world behind for a few years and joined a seminary. I was deeply moved and deeply horrified by the book. This is the true to life tragedies that TV and film never take you to. The real thing. Highly recommended.

This book gives incredible insight to anyone who reads it. It doesn't matter if it's leisure reading on an interesting topic or someone looking to gain knowledge for a possible future career in this field. DePue lends his expertise and countless years of experience to write a very informative and heartbreaking book. There are many people who attempted to enter into profiling and couldn't stick with it. Witnessing chilren being murdered brutally and raped savagely and the same crimes acted out onadults. How many people can honestly do that and not become psychologically affected eventually? He joined the seminary to relieve the years of demented cases he had to work. I have to applaud him for doing something that most people could never think about doing but has to be done. He has saved many lives and when that couldn't be done, he at least gave peace to many families who had family members taken from them. This book is inspiring and deserves two thumbs up! I highly recommend it!!

This book describes the depths of human evil, which is very personal. Very disturbing at times, Depue describes the murders in detail, yet with profound respect for the victim. He also describes the murderers (half the point of the book) with the respect that such evil demands, letting the facts about these people speak for themselves: "I must have lost me head", joked one killer, after dropping the severed head of a victim and waking his downstairs neighbor (Depue reports a human head weighs about 9 pounds -- as much as a bowling ball). This book will certainly satisfy any prediliction for the macabre, while taking you to new level of understanding the reality of evil, and our part in the good.

I can't remember the last time I was so moved by a book, as I was by this one. After I finished reading it, I had to be alone, just to collect my thoughts. The author seems to be present at the scene of the crime, making the reader feel eerily that he/she, too is not only witnessing the event, but feeling the emotions of all parties involved. The beautiful prose rivets the attention, (which wants to, but cannot escape from the horrendous subject matter). This is not your typical crime story- this is an exploration of the deepest, darkest areas of the human brain; yet it manages to leave one with a sense of hope, for after all, there is goodness and innocence, too.