The Criminal Mind by Duncan Harding

The Criminal Mind by Duncan Harding
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 2 days

Pages - 400

Publisher - Penguin

Source - RAK

Blurb from Goodreads

‘A penetrating insight into the darkest corners of the human mind. The most moving, surprising and compelling book you’ll read this year’ M.J. ARLIDGE, bestselling author of Eeny Meeny

- A likeable young girl who’s burnt her family home to the ground

- A man with no memory of the night he killed his wife

- A teenager whose visions and voices have had murderous effect

One question binds these and others from the casebook of Britain’s leading forensic Why?

What drives a person to commit seemingly inexplicable crimes? Dr. Duncan Harding is the person the police and the courts turn to for answers.

An expert witness, he must try to establish a defendant’s mental state and motivation. And their fitness to stand trial.

Growing up in a broken, violent home, Harding became a doctor because he wanted to be good and kind. It led him on a journey that has brought him face to face with psychopaths, taken him to the limits of his compassion and to the darkest corners of his own troubled past.

But he’s never turned away nor given up hope. Mesmerizing, insightful and redemptive, The Criminal Mind is his unforgettable story.



My Review

So I read and watch a love of true crime, work stories from different professionals and this is the first book by this author but not my first foray into forensics/psychiatry. If you are familiar with the genre there is a lot of discussion by the professionals about the things they have seen, cases and incidents from their work life.

So this one was quite different from the others I have read. Some tend to focus more on the impact of the work on the author, some focus more or completely on the patients/inmates they have come across. This one is a perfect balance of both, not too central around the author with little about the actual forensic psychiatry but not just all about the patients/individuals he is asked to evaluate. The author takes us through how he got to his chosen field, the people he worked with both other professionals and the individuals under care or being examined in preparation for court appearances.

We see different environments, his choices to go from adult care to children and the why behind it. The processes undertook when evaluating an individual to give his expert opinion on if something was done because of a disorder or mental health or if the individual(s) were of sound mind when they did what they did.

The book covers some very dark encounters, the things people can do to themselves and or others because of their mental health conditions/deterioration. I have read loads of true crime/horror and honestly sometimes the most scary stuff comes from humans. This book covers some of the most scary examples of when mental health deteriorates, the darker side of humanity like some people are thought to be pure evil and sometimes it can stem from things(abuse/crimes) that where done to them when they were children themselves and how that shapes and impacts them. The importance of early intervention, appropriate care and management and why he ended up focusing more on younger patients with this type of history.

It is such an interesting but harrowing read, the author himself has an interesting and sad backstory and unique health history too. The book was really well done infusing his personal life, work life and the sad and harrowing cases that he comes across professionally. This is the only book he had written, I really hope he writes more, 4.5/5 for me.

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