ShadowMan

Starred review from June 1, 2022

In the summer of 1973 in the small town of Manhattan, Montana, seven-year-old Susie Jaeger vanished from her family campsite tent in the middle of the night. After the largest manhunt in Montana history was unsuccessful, Pete Dunbar, the FBI special agent leading the investigation, contacted the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico for assistance. Psychologist Patrick Mullany and criminologist Howard Taten were teaching a course in psychological profiling and predicted that the killer was a white male and a former military veteran, and they offered other specific characteristics as well. Fifteen months later, David Meirhofer, a former suspect who had passed numerous lie detector tests, was arrested and convicted of killing Jaeger and three other people. Patty Neiman's calm and clear narration effectively builds suspense and captures the chilling details of the case. VERDICT True crime at its best, this is a compelling account detailing the beginnings of criminal profiling.--Phillip Oliver

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 17, 2022
In this exceptional true crime account, Franscell (The Darkest Night) tells the fascinating story of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit’s early days and the very first psychological profile used to catch a killer. In the summer of 1973, six-year-old Susie Jaeger was taken from her tent at a family campsite in a Montana state park. Nine months later, FBI special agent Pete Dunbar and his team discovered human remains near the park of a missing young woman and a small girl. Dunbar went to Quantico to ask two agents who taught a course in profiling to create a profile of the unknown suspect in the Jaeger case. Using clues from the crime scene and the investigation, they predicted he would be a white male, a military veteran, a loner—and that Susie wasn’t his first kill. One suspect who fit the bill was David Meirhofer, known as an “oddball,” but he passed three lie detector tests, and it wasn’t until body parts were found in his freezer that he confessed to four kidnapping and killings, including Susie’s. The profile also predicted he could be suicidal. In September of 1974, Meirhofer died by suicide while in jail. Franscell’s portrait of rural Montana will remind many of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, and the way he weaves together the threads of the different killings is spellbinding. This is a must for Mindhunter fans. Agent: Linda Konner, Linda Konner Literary.