When John Douglas first became an FBI agent, the bureau was using interrogation techniques and negotiation tactics of a bygone era. After spending time as a hostage negotiator and teacher at the FBI Academy in Quantico, the young investigator began interviewing convicted killers and rapists hoping for insight into the criminal mind.

Along with fellow agent Robert Ressler, who coined the term “serial killer,” and Dr. Ann Burgess who’d taken a similar approach to interviewing survivors of sexual assault, Douglas developed the process of criminal profiling and began applying these...