Be Your Own Detective » (REV)

This updated and expanded edition of Be Your Own Detective includes the new technological advances in the art of snooping. High-tech devices developed for the most part by the military--night vision goggles, bugging and tapping equipment, sound amplification dishes are all now available (at reasonable to staggering prices) at the neighborhood electronics shop. The worldwide web is an amazing one-stop source of information. Authors Fallis and Greenberg have compiled the host of opportunities offered by the web and point out how they may be accessed most efficiently and effectively.

Publishers Weekly

Readers who are untroubled by fastidious concern for ethics but plagued with curiosity will take careful notes as Fallis, a licensed P.I., and Greenberg, a criminal defense lawyer, team up to coach the novice on the art of sleuthing. Practical tips on such venerable skills as tailing (use reflective surfaces, they suggest; look at shop windows, plexiglass bus shelters or even puddles rather than directly at the subject) and surveillance (put a cheap watch under a tire on a subject's car; if he drives off, the watch's broken face will reveal the time of departure) stand out from sections that appear mere padding (on the detective's ``sense of self,'' for example), from the authors' intrusively articulated mutual admiration, and from the numerous instances where the duo outlines formula lies designed to expedite information-gathering from civil servants. A lot of their advice is just common sense; much of the writing coyly hardboiled--but would-be Columbos will not mind in the least. (Jan.)