The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigating by Steven Kerry Brown
As you may have guessed, I’m in my reading mode again. I seriously can’t read and write at the same time. I have a couple more fiction books I’d like to read, then I’m on to a non-fiction.
I don’t usually write reviews for non-fiction books, but I might with this one. It was written by Steven Kerry Brown, a Private Investigator I met at Sleuthfest. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigating.
3rd edition Click here to buy.
He began his career as a special agent for the FBI. During his eleven years with the F.B.I., he was assigned to a multitude of cases, ranging from bank robberies and theft of Government property, to foreign counterintelligence and foreign and domestic terrorism. He learned a great deal about homicides and worked on three Indian Reservations. I’m particularly interested in his work on Indian Reservations as it pertains to my next novel.
For the last twenty-eight years, he has successfully managed his own private investigator firm. His cases are fascinating and as varied as you could imagine. That’s one of the things that makes the P.I. role so very interesting to me. During his P.I. years, his clients have called on his expertise for everything from pre-employment background checks to sophisticated white-collar crime thefts, from murders designed as suicides to the return of parentally abducted children from foreign lands.
For one corporate client, Brown located (skip traced) 2,000 people each month. He has followed and photographed wayward husbands and wives in the Pacific Northwest, by boat in the Bahamas, and on the beaches of the Virgin Islands.
I’d be inclined to make him Richard Noggin’s mentor, if he’d allow me the honor.
He’s very keen on mistakes people make in writing the P.I. character.
He has published non-fiction articles in Gambling Times and has been mentioned professionally in newspapers across the nation and in national magazines such as Businessweek. His appearances include local and national television, including Hard Copy and A Current Affair. He appeared with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes. He lectures regularly around the country.
He’s also authoring a series of P.I. novels set in St Augustine, FL. He’s very helpful to fellow writers. I’m taking notes. He keeps his book revised and updated. After finishing this book, I’d love to pick his brain in an interview.
As he says it, “Today’s complete idiot is tomorrow’s expert.”
Filed under: Book Reviews and Books Tagged: craft, edge, Handbook, research, Steven Kerry Brown, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Private Investigating
