Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, The Mad Bomber An... Apr 2026

"Before Clarice Starling and Mindhunter , there was Dr. James Brussel. In 1956, after sixteen years of failure, the NYPD turned to a psychiatrist to do what traditional detective work couldn't: find a needle in a haystack of eight million people.

"We think of terror as a modern invention, a product of a connected age. But in the 1950s, George Metesky—the 'Mad Bomber'—held New York City hostage with little more than gunpowder, wool socks, and a 16-year-old grudge. Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, the Mad Bomber an...

The book by Michael Cannell explores how the 16-year hunt for George Metesky, a serial bomber who terrorized 1950s New York, gave birth to the modern science of criminal profiling. "Before Clarice Starling and Mindhunter , there was Dr