This is a jumbo-size sourcebook devoted primarily to locating and researching people, their assets or other information more or less “by any means necessary.” To keep the dry realities of PI work and other investigative work from bogging things down, Lapin throws in plenty of Walter Mitty-appeal espionage lore such as night vision, bugs, phone tapping, scrambling, encryption and video surveillance including some titillating details about Mossad and the KGB of today. Most impressive is the clarity and generosity with which he imparts his hardcore hands-on do-it-yourself-sleuth training, which is as useful for investigative journalists and the merely obsessive as it is for wannabe spooks: handy fax forms for missing persons traces, court-document retrieval services, online databases (with prices) and even tips on old-fashioned breaking and entering. SS

Publisher: Intelligence
Paperback: 440 pages
Illustrated