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Malicious Intent: A Writer's Guide to How Murderers, Robbers, Rapists and Other Criminals Think
Sean P. Mactire
A reference book with a lurid title and a practical purpose: helping crime writers get the criminal mind right. Part of Writer's Digest's well-known Howdunit series for novelists, Sean Mactire's guide walks through who criminals are, why they offend, how they choose victims, and how they are caught — drawing on criminology, profiling, and case history to help a writer build a villain who behaves plausibly rather than theatrically. It covers serial and cult murder, sexual predators, terrorism, and the psychology that separates one kind of offender from another. For the mystery or thriller writer it is a research shortcut; for the general reader, a sober, occasionally grim primer on criminal behavior.
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The book
Published in 1995 by Writer's Digest Books as part of its Howdunit series — a line of reference guides that put expert knowledge (forensics, poisons, police procedure, criminal psychology) into novelists' hands. Sean P. Mactire's contribution surveys criminal motivation and method: profiling, serial and cult murder, sexual predation, the roles of victims and of drug abuse, and the differences among types of offenders.
How to read it
As a working tool rather than original scholarship — a digest of mid-1990s criminology and true-crime material shaped to a writer's needs. Some of its framing (especially around profiling, then near the height of its cultural prestige) reflects the confidence of its moment more than current forensic consensus, so it is best used as a springboard for character rather than a textbook.
For more context
The rest of the Writer's Digest Howdunit series (on forensics, poisons, and police procedure); and, for the real thing, John Douglas's FBI profiling memoirs.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Sean P. Mactire
- Publisher
- Writer's Digest Books
- Place of publication
- Cincinnati
- Year
- 1995
- ISBN
- 9780898796483
- Shelf
- Craft & How-to
- Location
- Maine