This one's an eye-opener
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I was so looking forward to reading this book. I just love reading John Douglas' profiling books and I was ready to delve into a new facet, the sexual predator. Unfortunately, Mr. Michaud just about ruined the book for me. The main thing that grated on my nerves was the use of $50 words when a ten cent word would do. The bigger, longer, fancier word did nothing to add to the content and did more to confuse me, the average reader. I spent more time reaching for my dictionary than I did reading the book! I consider myself well read and I have a good vocabularly but I do believe this guy was out to make the reader feel stupid. For example, he uses the word "scion" instead of "son" when referring to a child. Who uses these words in everyday conversation? Hazelwood's profiles and discoveries will really open your eyes and make you think. He's obviously a very smart man who devoted most of his life to ridding society of these animals. I applaud Roy Hazelwood for this book and recommend to Mr. Michaud that he leave his thesaurus alone the next time around.
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Informative
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Excellent source of information regarding sexual predators of all kinds. I bought the book as a research tool and found it informative and readable.
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All over the map, with no destination in sight
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Buying this book, I felt I would gain better insight into Roy Hazelwood and learn quite a bit about how he "profiles" criminals. You get some of that in this book, but there is no story being told here. The collection of chapters thrown together have no real path that they are following, so what you are getting are (to me) unrelated chapters. Will you learn more about those that commit sex crimes and what drives them to do it? Yes. Will you come away thinking you understand Roy Hazelwood any better? Probably not. Will this book be a good read? For me, the answer was a resounding NO.
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A lukewarm book that doesn't fit its title
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I'm a huge fan of true crime and forensic science. However, I found this book seriously disappointing.....particularly since I bought it in hardbound!!! I can't count the number of times in this book that I sighed in disappointment,since suddenly, the book would shift to a chapter that had absolutely no connection with the subtitle of this book, "FBI Profiler Roy Hazelwood's Journey into the Minds of Sexual Predators." In fact, there wasn't much about sexual predators until the final chapters. And........Stephen Michaud, who wrote this book, tends to cover topics in such brevity that it leaves the reader wondering, "And? And?" I think the problem here is Stephen Michaud. He stinks as a writer. I'm sure Roy Hazelwood's career has been fascinating, and it's unfortunate that he chose Michaud as his author of choice. There were so many grammatical errors in the first third of this book that I simply couldn't imagine why Michaud was thanking his editor. For me, particularly in a hardbound, such carelessness just drives me nuts. All-in-all, I found this book to be a major disappointment and the single most dull book I've read in true crime/forensic science.
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Disturbing and fascinating
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Definately recommended for those who are fascinated by the criminal and disturbed mind. Some chapters are more interesting than others (a few are somewhat boring) but overall, very good. There are numerous grammar and typographical errors.
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