{"id":9081,"date":"2021-06-29T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-29T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9081"},"modified":"2021-07-14T07:51:34","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T11:51:34","slug":"the-21st-century-p-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9081","title":{"rendered":"The 21st Century P.I."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Writers who focus on stories about crime are doubtless aware that the job description of today\u2019s private detective has expanded dramatically. Tyler Maroney in his book: How Corporate Intelligence is Reshaping the World, looks far beyond the old-fashioned gumshoe, sitting in his beater, chain-smoking and sipping from a flask outside a no-tell motel. In fact, several of the books I\u2019ve enjoyed most this year take advantage of investigators\u2019 diverse roles–like New Jersey Noir: Cape May<\/em><\/a>, and The Measure of Time<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Says Maroney, who has his own firm, Quest Research & Investigations, America\u2019s 35,000 private investigators \u201care everywhere,\u201d working for a long list of clients–large companies, government agencies, A-list movie stars, professional athletes, non-profits, sovereign nations, media organizations, and business tycoons. They work for lawyers preparing cases and politicians running for office. Why are they hired? To uncover wrongdoing, right wrongs (real or perceived), satisfy curiosity, and find someone or something, for revenge or competitive advantage. Sometimes the hiring is in a worthy cause, and sometimes it\u2019s merely to feed paranoia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book describe a series of interesting cases, among them, helping a civil rights law firm free a wrongly incarcerated client, using computer forensics to ferret out employee fraud, conducting background checks on company executives before a client invests, recovering assets from American debtors hiding abroad, and negotiating with foreign strongmen. In the chapter on a surveillance assignment, he says (and this will be contrary to every television show you\u2019ve ever seen), investigators cannot lie to a subject, they cannot impersonate or deceive. In many states, they cannot fabricate their identities. Despite the many prohibitions, Maroney says, \u201cabout once a month in my job, someone asks me to break the law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are good stories here and no doubt equally good ones buried in some of those illegal requests. Enough story ideas to last the decade!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sheer variety of the work is fascinating, especially for those who write about crime and what it takes to ensure an investigator\u2019s clients \u201cget the hidden information they need. We are lubricant, bandage, and weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find it on Amazon<\/a> or at your local indie bookstore<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writers who focus on stories about crime are doubtless aware that the job description of today\u2019s private detective has expanded dramatically. Tyler Maroney in his book: How Corporate Intelligence is Reshaping the World, looks far beyond the old-fashioned gumshoe, sitting … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The 21st Century P.I. - The old-fashioned gumshoe is mostly gone. Bring on the legal advisors, political operatives, and computer wizards who find out what people don't want them to know.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,54,267,35,186,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-detective","category-non-fiction","category-real-life","category-technology","category-the-morgue"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2mt","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9083,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9081\/revisions\/9083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}