How to Find Missing Persons.

The author of How to Find Missing Persons sums up his philosophy in the introduction: "I've always believed that the best way to catch a rat is to get down in the gutter with the rat....[T]he two-legged low-life rats out there have ripped off, cheated, swindled, or in some way caused a world of grief and misfortune for your clients. I actually encourage you to be unfair and unscrupulous when chasing these swine."

Unfortunately, this negativity and scorn for legality and propriety pervade the book. The book is a series of critical opinions and tips on getting data from companies and outsmarting those who hold valuable information. The author challenges basic investigation techniques, almost to the point of being confrontational.

The author's attitude is reflected in coarse language and in a dim view of people in general. He sees those with information as unsophisticated and easily manipulable.

The work is filled with flippant remarks, at the expense of practical advice on sound investigative strategies. Eriksen ignores investigative field work and solid interviewing techniques - how most information is gained - and focuses almost entirely on ploys to get information over the telephone. The text becomes repetitive; the author uses permutations of the same routine in various situations.

These ruses border on the illegal, and may backfire on the investigator. For example, the author fails to adequately address privacy laws, a major issue for private investigators.

Also, many of the artifices he suggests are outdated and unlikely to work. For example, it is much harder to get information from local telephone companies than he suggests.

Nor does Eriksen provide much new information. Sources of data that appear in the book's five appendices appear to have been added as afterthoughts. Much of that information can be obtained from data brokers and contacts.

Eriksen also condemns various practices in private investigation. In Chapter 29, the author says that some private investigators hire public relations firms and professional writers to write articles and books about them. "Such books and articles are filled with exaggerated or even completely fictitious events," he says. This is a serious - and questionable - allegation made without any proof.

The author also decries state laws that establish standards for investigators: "Most states have ridiculously strict laws governing the P.I. field," he complains. For example, he claims that Illinois's standards are unduly exclusive because they require that investigators be at least twenty-one years of age, lack a criminal record, pass a written test, have three years' experience in the field, and post a $5,000 bond. While Eriksen is correct in saying that becoming an investigator is expensive, he fails to recognize that certification requirements rightfully exclude people who lack the proper credentials and ethics.

This book offers little new information. It has a negative tone and misleadingly portrays the investigative profession and its practitioners as dishonest and unprofessional. Consequently, the book has little value for a security professional. In fact, the negative and condescending tone may give new investigators an unseemly and largely inaccurate view of the profession.

Reviewer: Daniel R. Devine, CPP, is a licensed private detective and manager of loss prevention for a major retailer in Chicago. He is a member of ASIS.