Behavior, Truth and Deception is the finest book and resource material I have found on interrogating criminal suspects. Mike Napier and his outstanding collaborators bring together all of the critical components of the art and science of interviewing and interrogation into one easy-to-read source. By this I mean the legal, psychological, analytical, and practical aspects of behaviorally-based interrogations. As someone who has interrogated individuals suspected of committing some of the world’s worst crimes, including crimes against humanity, I can unequivocally state that the techniques and discussions provided in this book will indeed assist the practitioner in successfully eliciting incriminating statements and admissions for crimes of any classification. I will use the book both as a professional reference and as a textbook for my students.
― Dr. John Cencich, university professor and former United Nations war crimes investigator
Mike Napier's expertise, experience, and education are evident in Behavior, Truth and Deception, and the result is a fine law enforcement textbook on successful interview and interrogation. Kansas officers recall Mike Napier's interrogation contributions to the successful prosecutions of killers like Donald Ray Gideon (Stephanie Rene Schmidt) and Richard Grissom (Theresa Brown, Joan Butler, and Christine Rusch). Thanks to Behavior, Truth and Deception, that expertise is now available to all.
―Larry Welch, retired FBI special agent and supervisory senior resident agent, and retired director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
Mr. Napier, a retired FBI profiler and polygraph examiner, reveals for the first time secrets learned and used in his distinguished career with groundbreaking interviewing psychology obtained from successfully interrogating hundreds of criminals responsible for high-profile crimes. Behavior, Truth and Deception goes well beyond the usual interpretation of body language during interrogation, focusing on the psychological factors in interrogation and confession. Mr. Napier discloses how the Targeted Subject Interview technique maximizes the psychological impact of interrogations, reveals a suspect’s psychological weakness, and provides verbal tactics that will lead to a confession. He describes the psychological approach that the FBI’s profile unit uses to analyze a crime scene to gain insight to the offender’s psychological motivation and obtain a confession.
Mr. Napier’s book includes information on analyzing and profiling sexual assault crimes, interviewing sexual assault victims to obtain psychological information on the suspect, gathering psychological information on suspects, and an overlooked but critical aspect of preparing for an interrogation: victimology. Mr. Napier provides case examples to illustrate the psychological lessons learned from years of profiling and interrogating serial murders, rapists, and other serious offenders. Checklists for conducing psychological background investigations of suspects and indirect personality assessment of suspects provide investigators with themes and verbal tactics for obtaining confessions.
Chapters on false reports and the analysis of 911 calls provide new sources of information for even seasoned investigators. The text is supplemented with checklists and guides for suspect indirect personality assessment, sexual assault victim interviews, victimology assessment, and the structure of a successful interrogation that make application of the psychological techniques described in the book easy to apply in real cases.
―Perry Gilmore, Master of Arts, Forensic Psychologist, Interrogation Instructor, Assistant Chief of Police, Amarillo Texas Police Department
Not only a master of the psychology of interrogation, Michael Napier was an extraordinary FBI Agent for 28 years who honed his interrogation skills in the field. When I was a federal prosecutor, Mike Napier was the FBI case agent that cracked a pervasive and long term bribery scheme involving nearly all the meat packers in southern California and many of the U.S. Department of Agriculture meat graders and inspectors assigned there. The scheme was carried on for years behind a wall of silence that was only penetrated when then Agent Napier induced one of the USDA officials to confess that he had taken bribes for several years while in the Los Angeles office of the USDA. This confession led to a guilty plea and cooperation. The official became a FBI informant and went undercover wearing a wire. Nearly 100 defendants were ultimately indicted and convicted of giving and receiving bribes; the largest series of bribery prosecutions in the history of the U.S. Department of Justice.
In his book Behavior, Truth and Deception, Michael Napier lays out the preparation and tactics that every detective should know before interrogating suspects. Because of his background as a criminal investigator with the FBI, Napier is in a unique position to combine the theoretical with the practical when it comes to the most astute interrogations methods known to criminal investigators. Law enforcement in the U.S. and in other countries around the globe have much to learn from Napier’s excellent book on the best and proven interrogation practices and techniques. As his book demonstrates, coercive tactics are rarely needed, and they tend to reduce the reliability of admissions and confessions. Indeed, there are some important lessons in this book for intelligence services that are involved in interrogation of subjects.
Napier’s book is surely the primer for questioning suspects, and it is a must read for all who are or may be engaged in interrogations of criminal subjects.
―Robert C. Bonner, former Administrator of the DEA, former Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and a former U.S. Attorney and United States District Judge
Michael R. Napier is a former FBI (27 years) Supervisory Special Agent, field office program manager and violent crime assessor in the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, where he investigated complex bribery, price-fixing, organized crime, violent crime, labor racketeering, Medicare and medical fraud, and white collar crime cases. He also supervised undercover operations. He is an FBI-qualified Polygraph Examiner and has extensively studied interview and interrogation strategies and tactics and the methodology to deny successful challenges to confessions. He specializes in applying behavioral analysis to violent crimes to assess the potential for preventing violence or deterring specific criminals in individual settings. Those techniques include determining foresee-ability of an individual committing a violent act. He is a nationally-recognized presenter on various topics concerning violent crime assessment, violent offender motivation, interview and interrogation strategies and crisis management subjects. Mr. Napier holds Adjunct Faculty positions at the University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University and Wichita State University.
