Legendary FBI criminal profiler and former special agent John Douglas has cracked some of America’s most challenging murder cases. The FBI’s pioneer of criminal profiling and the inspiration behind the hit Netflix show Mindhunter, Douglas has spent decades researching, interviewing, and analyzing 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 on profiling and interrogating deadly predators.

Now Douglas, along with his longtime collaborator Mark Olshaker, turns his keen eye on four of the most disturbing killers he has confronted. Offering never-before-revealed details about his profiling process, Douglas goes step by step through his encounters with these murderers, connecting each predator’s crimes to his conversation with them and showing how he used his interrogation skills to expose their true evil. He also returns to other famous cases he’s worked on, describing how the knowledge he gained from those conversations helped prepare him for these.

Fascinating and haunting, The Killer Across the Table unlocks the ultimate mysteries behind these depraved killers, revealing the psychology that led them into darkness.