Broken Wings by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker

An FBI thriller about, uh, FBI thriller things. The Director is murdered and there’s internal politics and a survivalist militia group and an international crime syndicate. You know.

Okay, just so we’re all clear. John Douglas is one of the authors of this book. He is also one of the founders of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit, and a groundbreaking profiler. He’s arrogant, self-righteous, and extraordinarily talented almost enough to justify both. He’s a legend in the field and to those of us who follow it closely. He once landed himself in a coma while tracking the Green River murderer due to viral encephalitis. (He’s also, incidentally, a strong influence on the creation of Criminal Minds’s Jason Gideon, whom I must confess to liking much more than his progenitor).

Jake Donovan is the protagonist of this book. He is also one of the founders of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit, and a groundbreaking profiler. He’s arrogant, self-righteous, and extraordinarily talented almost enough to justify both. He once landed himself in a coma while tracking the Black Diamond murderer due to viral encephalitis.

Got that? I know it’s hard to keep these things straight.

Anyway. This is a mildly amusing thriller, as thrillers go, with predictably hairpin plot twists, a boy’s wet dream sort of romance, and a hilarious movie cliché climax (cat on a plane! No, really!). I only read this book for Donovan's Douglas’s occasional digressions into past cases and profiles, and if you’re as interested in criminal behavior as I am, you’re much better off reading his nonfiction.