Being A Detective: An A-z Readers' And Writers' Guide To Detective Work

Stephen Wade

Description

A Straightforward Guide to Being a Detective An A-Z Readers and Writers Guide to Detective Work Past and Present is an essential research companion for all writers of crime fiction and non-fiction. In all genres of popular crime writing today, detective characters figure prominently. What is the life of a detective actually like? What was it like in 1890 or 1990? Former detective Stuart Gibbon and crime historian Stephen Wade answer these questions in this new companion guide. This new volume provides an ideal companion volume to the authors' previous book, The Crime Writer's Casebook.

Informations

• Publié par: Straightforward Publishing
• Date de parution: 25 mars 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781847169525
• Langue: English

Extrait

BEING A DETECTIVE
An A-Z Readers and Writers Guide to detective work past and present
Stephen Wade and Stuart Gibbon
Straightforward Publishing www.straightforwardco.co.uk
Straightforward Guides
Copyright Stuart Gibbon and Stephen Wade 2019
Stuart Gibbon and Stephen Wade have asserted the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holders.
ISBN: 978-1-84716-889-4 ePUB ISBN: 978-1-84716-952-5 Kindle ISBN: 978-1-84716-959-4
Printed by 4edge www.4edge.co.uk
Marketing by Sarah Wray at Astra Editorial astraeditorial.com
Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained within this book is correct at the time of going to press, the author and publisher can take no responsibility for any errors or omissions contained within
Reviews for the Crime Writers Casebook
A superb guide that I keep by my laptop at all times. I highly recommend you read it before putting pen to paper
Carol E. Wyer - USA Today and Amazon bestselling crime fiction author
An excellent, up-to-date resource for anyone who writes crime fiction or has a keen interest in British police procedures and legal processes
Jackie Kabler - TV presenter and crime writer
I m thrilled that Stuart Gibbon and Stephen Wade have written such a wonderful book - I think this is going to become a must-have for many authors. The Crime Writer s Casebook is an intriguing, fascinating, illuminating source of information. I love it!
Ronnie Turner - book blogger and author of psychological thriller Lies Between Us
The Crime Writer s Casebook is a brilliant easy-to-read guide to police procedure, whether you re writing crime fiction or just have an interest in the topic. It is a fascinating, well-written and well-planned book with so much packed into its 250 or so pages
Victoria Goldman - author, book reviewer and editorial expert for LoveReading
A detailed and entertaining resource for writers of contemporary and historical fiction. I highly recommend it
Tracey Emerson - author of She Chose Me
This is a comprehensive and well-written guide for anyone wanting to write a realistic crime novel or a non-fiction work involving police operations
Police History Magazine June 2018
That s me set up for my new writing project. Thank you for my invaluable crime reference writing tool ... I think it will be my writing bible.
Sheryl Browne - author of the DI Matthew Adams thriller series
A fantastic addition to any crime writer s bookshelf!
Caroline Mitchell - author of the DS Ruby Preston series
It s a must for all aspiring UK crime writers.
Stephen Booth - author of the Cooper and Fry series
What a massive compilation of facts this book is - a must for anyone writing crime. Everything that you need to know, expertly indexed for ease of reference. When I was writing my first book, which had a small part of it concerned with the abduction of a child, I would have loved to have had this book by my side .
Pam Fish National Association of Writers Groups
A must buy for all crime authors with no police procedural experience.
CL Taylor - author of psychological thrillers The Accident , The Lie , The Missing , The Escape and The Fear
Contents
Introduction
The Authors
THE A-Z OF DETECTIVE WORK PAST AND PRESENT (COMPLETE WITH CASE STUDIES)
A
ABC PRINCIPLE
ABE (Achieving Best Evidence)
ALIBI
B
BIG HOUSE
BIG RED KEY
BODY LANGUAGE FORENSICS
BOGUS CALLERS
BOW STREET RUNNERS
BRIEF
BRIEFINGS
C
CAMINADA (JEROME)
CASHPOINT ROBBERY CRIMES
CRIMES CLUB
CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS
CYBER CRIME
D
DETENTION WITHOUT CHARGE
DICKENS AND THE FIRST DETECTIVES
DISCLOSURE
DNA TAGGING
DOGS
DRONES
DRUGS
E
EARLY MORNING BLUES
ETHNICITY CODES
EXPERIENCE
F
FACIAL RECOGNITION
FAMILIAL DNA SEARCHING
FINGERPRINTS
FLYING SQUAD
FOOTWEAR EVIDENCE
FOXTROT 11 (One-One)
G
GENEALOGY
GENE HUNT
GHOST SQUAD
GIVING EVIDENCE
GOLDEN HOUR
GUN CRIME
GRAPHOLOGY
H
HISTORY OF DETECTIVES IN BRITAIN
HOLMES (Not Sherlock)
HOMICIDE
HUMAN RIGHTS
HYPOTHESIS
I
ICIDP (Initial Crime Investigators Development Programme)
INFORMANT
INTERVIEWS
INSPECTOR
INTERPOL
IOPC
J
JOINT ENTERPRISE
JOURNALISTS
K
KEY, OR SIGNIFICANT WITNESS
KEYLESS CAR CRIME
KING S AND QUEEN S MESSENGERS
L
LIFE ON MARS
LIFE SENTENCE
LOCARD S EXCHANGE PRINCIPLE
M
MG FORMS (file for prosecution standard set of forms)
MODERN SLAVERY
MOTIVE
MURDER BAG
MURDER INVESTIGATION MANUAL
N
NEWTON COURT HEARING
NOVICHOK
NUMBER SPOOFING
O
ODONTOLOGY
OLD BAILEY
OPERATIONAL NAMES
P
PASSIVE DATA GENERATORS
PHONETIC ALPHABET
PHONETICS (AND LANGUAGE TEXTS)
PHONETIC SCIENCE
PINKERTON, ALLAN
PLOD
PRIVATE DETECTIVES
PROCEEDS OF CRIME ACT
POLICY FILE
PROFILING
PROMOTION
PSYCHICS IN CRIME DETECTION
Q
QUALITIES OF A DETECTIVE
Q-CAR
QUEENS COUNSEL
R
RANK STRUCTURE
RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING (Historical)
REGIONAL DETECTIVES: PRE-1900
RETIREMENT
RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act)
ROGUE TRADERS
S
SCAMS
SCOTCH
SCOTLAND YARD
SHOULDER SURFING
SIO
SPECIAL BRANCH
SPECIALIST ROLES
SUPER RECOGNISER
T
TACTICAL CONTACT
TELEPHONE SCAMS
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
TRAINING TO BECOME A DETECTIVE
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY CRIME
U
UNSOLVED MURDERS
UNUSED MATERIAL
V
VICTIMOLOGY
VIDOCQ (EUGENE)
W
WARRANT CARD
WILD WEST BRITAIN
WOMEN IN DETECTIVE WORK
WOODENTOP
X
XAVIER
X-RAYS
Y
YOU RE NICKED
Z
Z-CARS
ZOMBIE KNIFE
A Timeline of Detective History
Bibliography and Sources
Index
This book contains details of true crime cases which some readers may find upsetting. The details have been included for clarity and context.
Introduction
Introducing the book
We have become accustomed to the charismatic detective, whether he or she is cerebral (Morse, Holmes) or rough and streetwise (Dalziel, Resnick, Vera) and what they all have in common, in the world of storytelling, is an indefinable quality that fuses instinct with dogged insistence on method and procedure. Yet the detective also has to have the everyday appeal of the human being - someone like us, the readers and viewers. Hence Frost constantly chews sandwiches and eats on the hoof, and countless detectives worry about their figure, their kids, their bank balance or their aged parent.
This is in the world of make-believe. Novelists and dramatists rely on such qualities, but they also need the actual stuff of life, the material world of the detective as it is now or as it was back in 1850 or in 1950. Our new book is intended to help the writer ascertain the right facts and procedure, and also will enrich the reading experience we have when we engage with crime fiction. Consequently, we had readers and writers in mind when we conceived this companion volume to our successful The Crime Writer s Casebook (2017).
The mix of contributions is as it was before: Stuart Gibbon provides material from the actual world of police detective work in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, while Stephen Wade adds historical explanations of various aspects of the detective s life.
Our aim from the start was to convey the feel of being a detective - that is, to offer interpretations of all the major aspects of the work since it first began. To Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, perhaps above all others, we owe the notion of the mythic perspective on the detective: the character who sits somewhere between brain-box and adventurer in our imagination. In its first century or so, crime fiction rested on the idea that there was an illusion of rationality: that the baddie is punished and the status quo is somehow restored, in spite of the loss or death of a person involved in the tale. Some might argue that this is a bourgeois illusion, and that for the nitty-gritty wage-earning folk who live with a tough edge on life, the good do not always have satisfaction and closure in affairs of transgression. Be that as it may, the point is that, in most cases, readers want their detectives to win over the enemy, and writers want to make the course of the story exciting and thought-provoking, even if the baddie gets away.
The question facing us here is one of how to place the entries. After all, we want to give the reader a way into aspects of the lives of detectives that are strongly present in life as in fiction, and yet are not easily labelled. For instance, an important part of the work - since the very beginning - has been the outsider image. That is, he or she knocks at someone s door and a sequence of circumstances or events have led them to that arrival; they may be on their own patch, or they may have travelled from London to any places in the shires or beyond England. They will be seen as outsiders. Even within the constabulary, the detective may, and often in the past, did exist on the margins, apt to do extempore things when following a tenuous lead.
The Wider World of Crime
Of course, the nature of crime has changed radically with modernity and with technology. The work of a detective today may entail almost exclusively desk-work and the use of computers. Investigating some categories of fraud will necessarily include teamwork and the contributions of experts with a status akin to the geek of common parlance. The gumshoe has perhaps had his day.
Still, Raymond Chandler s sleuth, Philip Marlowe, put a stamp on our image of the detective for all time, long after the first swell of success for the hard-boiled variation in the crime genre. It is not hard now, to locate the kind of detective who still walks the mean streets and has a gentlemanly code of conduct in spite of the moral chaos around him