Jeffrey L. Rinek

If you like true crime novels, especially those in the same vein as John Douglas' (Mindhunter), then you will enjoy Rinek's In the Name of the Children. Although perhaps enjoy is the wrong word. Rinek takes you deep into his world as an FBI agent who specializes in crimes against children. It's dark and gruesome yet also oddly fascinating. Rinek was relentless in his pursuit of justice and it shows in the cases he highlights here. Nothing is more disturbing and heartbreaking than when harm comes to a child and this book looks at these cases and brings to light not only these tragedies but the men and women who fight for justice and bring hope that maybe one day this won't happen anymore.… (meer)

Although I was concerned that IN THE NAME OF THE CHILDREN might turn me off by its subject matter, I thought wrong. This book concentrates on the effects of child abuse cases on Jeffrey Rinek, the FBI agent who worked them, more than it does on the cases, themselves. I’m very glad I read it.

The book begins with Jeffrey Rinek as a boy and gives the reader an idea of why he was the way he was as an adult in the FBI. When he fulfilled a lifelong dream of becoming an FBI agent, he was assigned many child abuse cases and cases of missing and murdered children. He was found to be a successful interviewer/interrogator because of his compassion, and that compassion was almost his undoing. He is now retired from the FBI.

Rinek was strongly affected by his cases, and IN THE NAME OF THE CHILDREN describes several of them and why and how each affected him. So you could say that this is both Rinek’s memoir and a true crime book.

Thank you to bookclubcookbook.com. I wouldn’t have read IN THE NAME OF THE CHILDREN if you hadn’t sent it to me. I was so pleased with this book, I even emailed Rinek to tell him. Now I hope to convince others to read it.… (meer)

Rinek’s In the Name of the Children is a gritty walk on the dark side of humanity. For decades, Rinek worked as an FBI agent, devoted to bringing to justice some of the most depraved among the criminal element- those who would abuse and exploit children. Kidnapping, assault, sexual abuse, torture, murder, and more, Rinek has seen it all.

The first chapter- Jeffrey- is a mini-autobiography for Rinek himself, detailing how he became an agent, and niched himself into this particular division. Each chapter after discusses various cases the author worked on, except for the last which covers Rinek’s own family, and how the cases affected him and them. You cannot fight monsters and not suffer from the trauma of it. It costs you, leaving behind a sticky mental residue that never fully comes clean. In Rinek’s case, working on cases of missing, exploited, or murdered children left him suicidal at times, and gripped by PTSD. With a unique empathy-oriented interrogation style, and fierce determination, Rinek has succeeded in bringing some of the worst offenders to justice. This is hard work, the ugliest side of humanity, a side no-one should ever be exposed to. Yet it exists, and it is people like Agent Rinek who help keep it under control. It is work that take a toll on the soul, affecting not just the investigators, but their families as well.

I'm an empathetic person myself, and have an interest in forensics. Medical complications put paid to that career path, but I realise now how good a thing that was. I would have burnt out quickly from the onslaught of such heinous acts as one human can afflict upon another. I have the greatest respect for Rinek, and those like him, who keep up the fight despite its toll.

***Many thanks to Netgalley and BenBella Books for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.… (meer)