Product Description

The autobiography of Paul Britton, one of the foremost offender profilers in the world. What he searches for at the scene of a crime are not fingerprints, fibres or blood stains, he looks for the "mind trace" left behind by those responsible, the psychological characteristics that can help the police to identify and understand the nature of the perpetrator. Over the past dozen years, Britton has assisted the police in over 100 cases involving murder, rape, arson, extortion and kidnapping. Among them were the murder of Jamie Bulger on a lonely railway line in Liverpool, the abduction of baby Abbie Humphries, the brutal slaying of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common and the notorious "House of Horror" in Gloucester. He has helped to solve some of Britain's most baffling cases, and has also advised the FBI and the Russian Ministry of the Interior.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4405 in Books
• Published on: 1998-05-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 667 pages

From the Back Cover
Forensic psychologist Paul Britton asks himself four questions when he is faced with a crime: what has happened; who is the victim; how was it done; and why? Only when he has the answers to these questions can he address the fifth: who is responsible?

Paul Britton has assisted the police in over a hundred cases and has an almost mythic status in the field of crime deduction. His achievements read as though from the pages of Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie. What he searches for at the scene of the crime are not fingerprints, fibres or bloodstains - he looks for the 'mind trace' left behind by those responsible: the psychological characteristics that can help the police to identify and understand the nature of the perpetrator.

The Jigsaw Man is not only a detective story involving some of the most high-profile cases of recent years, but also a journey of discovery into the darkest recesses of the human mind to confront the question 'Where does crime come from?'

About the Author
Paul Britton
Paul Britton was born in 1946. Following degrees obtained in psychology from Warwick and Sheffield universities, he has spent the last twenty years working as a consultant clinical and forensic psychologist. He has advised the Association of Chief Police Officers' Crime Committee on offender profiling for many years and currently teaches postgraduates in clinical and forensic psychology. He is married with two children. Paul Britton is the author of Picking Up the Pieces and The Jigsaw Man, which won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award for Non-Fiction.

Customer Reviews

Superb
***

An absolutely enthralling read - this was delivered at 10.45am and I read it in one fell swoop, finishing it at ten to midnight the same day.

No long review necessary - just buy it and see.

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Captivating !!!!!!
Paul Britton's Masterpiece ........ never before have been so included in a novel. At some points I could have been standing there with Paul and seeing the things Paul had seen. The fact that these were "facts" never escaped my mind, however the extensively discriptive text draws your mind and takes you to places you could never, ever have imagined existed. This book takes you on a journey far too terrifying to comprehend yet far too captivating to miss. Understanding the criminal mind is only the beginning of the journey, there is the realisation that there are "people" so internally crucified and calculatingly frozen of emotion, these are people who stand at our bus stop's and buy their bacon from our local butchers shop. This journey will never stop ...... we will never be free of the intense cruelty of these disfunctional souls. My heart goes out to the people left behind the loved ones of the murdered, raped, mutilated etc. Paul Britton I comend you. I look forward to "Picking up the piece's".

Cracker Cracked!
The Jigsaw ManFACT- Paul Britton's reputation is now so tarnished in the worlds of psychology and policing that he is excluded from the UK police's list of accredited advisors and will never be called in to help on investigations again. That piece of information throws a completely different light on this book, leaving it looking like nothing more than a glossy self-publicity exercise. Paul Britton's involvement in the police's attempt to convict Colin Stagg for the 1992 murder of Rachel Nickell has now been discredited by the conviction of the real killer, Robert Napper in 2008. Ironically, Britton was called in to advise on some of Napper's other killings and emphatically told the police that there was no connection with the Nickell murder (The Jigsaw Man p265) despite claims to the contrary that he has made in the press recently! If you want to know the real story behind Britton and his shameful involvement in policing in the nineties, I would suggest looking elsewhere. Alison and Eyre's excellent book, Killer in the Shadows, would be a good place to start.
John A. Short