A riveting look into the depths of evil and the craft of a criminal profiling from the New York Times bestselling authors of Mindhunter.

“An eye-opening and chilling look into the minds of brutal murderers. . . . Douglas succeeds in taking readers inside his own mind as he worked to understand ‘four killers [he] confronted’ . . . separating fact from fiction, Douglas adds to lay readers’ understanding of human evil.”—Publishers Weekly

The FBI’s pioneer of criminal profiling and the inspiration behind the hit Netflix show Mindhunter, John Douglas has spent decades working to understand the criminal mind and hunt serial killers and violent predators. He has researched, interviewed, and analyzed 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.

The Killer Across the Table explores the lives and crimes of four of the most disturbing killers he has confronted, explaining in detail how each case expanded his knowledge and study of criminal behavior. Douglas goes step by step through his encounters with these murderers, connecting each sadistic predator’s crimes to his conversation with them and showing how he used his interrogation skills to expose their true evil and the psychology that led them into darkness. He also returns to other famous cases he’s worked on—the investigations and interviews that have shaped his career—describing how those conversations helped prepare him for these.