I’m fascinated by criminal profilers, like the heroine of my Profiler series,
Evelyn Baine. She can go to a crime scene where there’s no obvious motivation,
no promising suspects, and no useful forensics, and still tell law enforcement
officers what kind of person they’re looking for – and how to find him.
Why? Because she can get into the mind of a madman and understand why he did
what he did. But there’s a lot more to profiling than just getting into the
heads of killers…
Profiling the Perpetrator: The most obvious (and crucial) part of the
process is to create a profile of the perpetrator. Things unique enough to that
person to give law enforcement a way to weed through suspects – or draw in the
killer. In my latest Profiler book, STALKED, the crime scene is
particularly challenging: a teenage girl goes missing from inside her high
school. The scene tells Evelyn that one of two things happened: either the
perpetrator knew Haley Cooke and she felt safe leaving with him, or the
perpetrator was savvy enough to avoid detection and strong enough to
incapacitate her with potential witnesses nearby. The trouble the perpetrator
went to for this specific victim tells Evelyn he’s either in her life or hanging
around the periphery in some way. The suspect pool is instantly troubling,
including Haley’s older boyfriend, her jealous best friend, her estranged father
and her new step-father.
Profiling the Victim: No profile of a perpetrator is complete
without also looking at the victim. In STALKED, Haley Cooke is a high-risk
victim – meaning that abducting her out of her small town would put her
kidnapper at high risk of being caught in the process. The other part of
profiling Haley is knowing what about her might have drawn the perpetrator to
her – in this case, the note left behind in Haley’s room stating, “If you’re
reading this, I’m already dead” – suggests she had a secret that could destroy
someone. It’s yet another sign that Haley knew the person who grabbed her.
Profiling Other Law Enforcement: As an FBI agent called in to coordinate
with other law enforcement agencies – to provide a profile and then be involved
in other aspects of the investigation at their discretion – Evelyn must get them
to use her profile. So she has to instantly analyze how to navigate
intra-agency conflict and skepticism. But when she comes to Neville, Virginia
for Haley Cooke’s case, there’s something more, because there are signs someone
at the police station knows more than they should about Haley’s disappearance.
Profiling the Profiler: It’s not just other law enforcement Evelyn has to
consider, but also her own bias. And in the case of Haley Cooke, it’s not
letting memories of another girl’s disappearance eighteen years ago – of
Evelyn’s own best friend – get in the way of how she handles the profile.
Except the one thing Evelyn has never been good at is managing her own
boundaries, and very quickly, she finds herself drawn into Haley’s life and her
secrets. Finding the right secret could mean finally tracking down Haley, but
the closer she gets, the more obvious it becomes that someone will do anything
to keep their secret hidden – including making Evelyn disappear too.
To find out more about the series, visit www.elizabethheiter.com and for a chance
to win a Profiler prize pack, you can enter the Fresh Fiction contest.
Critically acclaimed and award-winning author ELIZABETH HEITER likes her
suspense to feature strong heroines, chilling villains, psychological twists,
and a little bit (or a lot!) of romance. Her research has taken her into the
minds of serial killers, through murder investigations, and onto the FBI
Academy’s shooting range. Her novels have been published in more than a dozen
countries and translated into eight languages; they've also been shortlisted for
the Daphne Du Maurier award, the National Readers' Choice award and the
Booksellers' Best award and won the RT Reviewers' Choice award.
The
heroine of Elizabeth's Profiler novels was called "one of the most amazing
characters created in print" by Fresh Fiction. Her novels have received praise
from Lee Child, J.T. Ellison, Jeffery Deaver, Tess Gerritsen, R.L. Stine,
Allison Brennan, Laura Griffin, Suzanne Brockmann, Hank Phillippi Ryan and Zoë
Sharp.
No comments posted.