The Monsters We Make
Murder, Obsession, and the Rise of Criminal Profiling
by Rachel Corbett
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Pub Date Oct 14 2025 | Archive Date Sep 30 2025
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Description
A taut, riveting work of true crime that tells the strange story of criminal profiling from Victorian times to our own
Criminal profiling—the delicate art of collecting and deciphering the psychological “fingerprints” of the monsters among us—holds an almost mythological status in pop culture. But what exactly is it, does it work, and why is the American public so entranced by it? In The Monsters We Make, prize-winning author Rachel Corbett explores how criminal profiling became one of society’s most seductive and quixotic undertakings through six significant moments in its history. She delves into Arthur Conan Doyle’s work on the Jack the Ripper case, Harvard psychologist Henry A. Murray’s pioneering profile of Adolf Hitler and his later experiments on his student Ted Kaczynski, and the FBI’s famed Behavioral Science Unit’s investigations of such killers as Ted Bundy. Taking the story into our own time and the use of “predictive policing,” Corbett examines how thin the line separating those who do harm and those who aim to stop it can be.
About the Author: Rachel Corbett is the author of You Must Change Your Life, which won the Marfield Prize, the National Award for Arts Writing. A features writer at New York magazine, her writing has also appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, and Atlantic. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Advance Praise
"Serial killers have spawned hundreds of books, but none like this. With a daughter’s heart and a reporter’s keen gaze, Rachel Corbett turns the stories inside out. She profiles the profilers—their methods, their hubris, and the evils they unwittingly commit. An expertly titrated mix of history, true crime, and memoir, The Monsters We Make is the most intriguing crime book I’ve read in quite some time." -Mary Roach, New York Times best-selling author of Fuzz, Gulp, and Stiff
"In her gripping and illuminating The Monsters We Make, Rachel Corbett takes us on an effortless journey through the allure and perils of trying to grasp the criminal mind." -Benjamin Wallace, author of The Billionaire’s Vinegar and The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto
"The Monsters We Make is a compelling, page-turning book. Part suspenseful true-crime drama, part insightful intellectual history, and part searing memoir—and, thanks to Rachel Corbett’s affecting, elegantly crafted narrative, always a gripping story filled with an intriguing parade of deeply-reported characters." -Howard Blum, New York Times best-selling author of When the Night Comes Falling
"In The Monsters We Make, Rachel Corbett goes on an odyssey to show how society identifies the 'manifestations of evil,' and how they change over time. Using her fabulous investigative talents and a tenacity for research she delves into the science of behavioral forensics and writes a roadmap to understanding the minds of both criminals and profilers." -Robert K. Wittman, founder of the FBI Art Crime Team and author of Priceless and The Devil’s Diary
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9780393867695 |
| PRICE | $28.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 256 |
