The Real Cracker (HB)

Using unprecedented access to sensitive police work, "The Real Cracker" follows Britain's two top offender profilers, Julian Boon and Richard Badcock as they help police work on five grim and perplexing cases. These include the prolific serial criminal who has raped or assaulted more than twenty elderly women and the man who preys on courting couples at a Hampshire beauty spot. There is the shocking rape and murder of a young woman in her south London flat, the sinister blackmailing of airline stewardesses in Sussex, and the mysterious killing of an eighty-seven-year-old spinster in a seaside town. As well as exposing the modern realities of profiling, "The Real Cracker" looks at its history and tackles some of the big questions about this fledgling and controversial science: does it really help to solve crimes? Is it much better than palmistry?