Practical Handbook for Private Investigations
Rory J. McMahon
CRC Press ISBN: 0849302900 1-800-272-7737 $59.95
It is tough for a private investigator to review a book telling us how to do what it is we already do: One has strongly held opinions on that. It like asking a golf pro if a doodad that helps improve your swing will sell. The answer is always “no it won’t,” yet these things sell in the millions. Well, same problem here. Mr. McMahon is a seasoned veteran on teaching and investigations and any effort on publication in this area is so hard to begin with, it definitely needed good hands, so we did what any person who is honest with themselves actually does: We gave the project to a few people who are not so close to the industry (our interns). Our interns genuinely liked the book for the ideas and the thoughts on the industry. The book covers many of the different fields of a diverse industry in a good summary fashion. It deals with the general facts of the investigative profession and not so much with the art.
It is genuinely difficult to write a book that could deal in detail with everything from Cattle Rustling Investigations to Aircraft Accident investigations, so an author must stay a generalist to remain relevant to all areas. The book takes a reader from no knowledge to a good beginning point for becoming an investigator. All of my interns recommend it as a buy, and it helped some of my interns learn about things I thought everyone already knew, and so I omitted from my training. Thus if you are interested buy it. Audience for book: new PI’s, and people such as attorneys who need to know how to use a PI, and law enforcement to understand how PI’s work.
