This comment was sent to me through the Diary of a Predator website just this morning from a woman in the U.K. who read my book, Diary of a Predator: A Memoir. I’m sharing this letter because it underscores exactly why I wrote the book. It’s incredibly gratifying to know people like her exist:
“I just finished reading your book and I have to say it was amazing. I am very interested in the criminal mind and am sure I have missed my calling as a criminal psychologist/forensic person and this is the book I have been waiting for. I watch loads of show on serial offenders, loads of psychology, read true crime, etc, and the ‘why’ has always fascinated me. I found myself laughing at Brent, crying with you, and getting so angry at the reporter who got him put into solitary that it surprised me!!
I would like to thank you for writing this book, for the courage it took both you and Brent Brents to write it and for the compassion you have. I am a Wiccan and my husband is a Buddhist, and I am filled with empathy for people who others shudder to think how anyone could have. We are always trying to grow in that way and to use compassion as our compass and you have shown me a new way to do so, you and other people in the book, such as Margaret and Ellen (I think? woman who lost her daughter in a car crash). There is always, always, another story underneath the ones we see on the surface and you have proved that in a way that totally surprised me. I feared he would kill himself before he found something worthy in himself to himself, and that fact surprised me. I really felt sorrow and sadness for how his life ended up. And I hope that he continues to grow in the way he was in the book. To feel that in spite of what he did his life is worth something.
Amazing. Thanks for writing this book, thanks for showing it from the side of the predator and thanks to Brent for being so honest. It will stay with me forever, the story and the lesson. Thanks to you both. Great courage you both displayed. Amazing.”
Diary of a Predator 