Forensic Psychology for Dummies

"The …for Dummies format is a very strong format. They have very clear guidelines, and a team of people working on it to make sure you fit the guidelines. They also have external assessors who will look at everything that you write to ensure it is valid. I always have to apologize to people when I say: ‘You should read my book, Forensic Psychology for Dummies ’ because in Britain, dummy is a term of insult. I always have to say, ‘actually, in America, it just means somebody who’s not an expert!’ When I was given the task of putting Forensic Psychology for Dummies together, I really had to embrace the whole discipline and find a way of dealing with it that was engaging and scholarly, without being pompous. They like, quite appropriately, to have case studies and additional anecdotes, so I was quite intrigued by being able to find enough material to fill the book. I’ve run courses now with non-specialists, the public at large. And I’ve turned to that book, from time to time, to decide what I’m going to do. Quite honestly, I read bits of it and think, ‘Oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t know that!’ I tend to write books on things I don’t know an awful lot about, as a way of getting on top of the material and getting to understand it. Forensic Psychology for Dummies was such a boot camp. I had to broaden my range of knowledge and issues, and find ways of illustrating them that would reach a popular audience. The book has done very well, by the standards of the sorts of books I publish; I think it hasn’t done quite as well as my book Criminal Shadows: Inside the Mind of the Serial Killer , which won the Gold Dagger award , but it has sold more copies than any other academic books I’ve written. So obviously it is reaching a wide market, people obviously find it intriguing and useful, and so do I!"