Did you ever think you wanted to be a private dick, well, probabaly not anymore after you finish this book. I didn't want to do it right away, but as like a retirement project in my 50's, hopefully get the whole family involved running the operation, BBS answering phones, Q out tailing perps, Em in the library, scrolling through microfiche newspaper articles late into the night, me, learning kung fu, spending time in seedy bars, sneaking around, picking locks.... I thought I might have the eye for detail, or something even more stupid and romantic about what it was like to be a private investigator.
Author, Daniel Ribacoff, as an ex-diamond seller/security man and later full-time PI, tells us all about the day to day of what it is like to do this job and gives plenty advice about how to do it. Bottom line for me was that, like everything, it takes a lot of hard work to do it right and it might be years before an actual business could be up and running starting from scratch. I loved this book, it was great having my dream shattered and my ideal future fade to nothing. How I thought investigating criminals would be anything but hard work and long hours is beyond me, but Ribacoff makes very clear what this type of life entails.
I think this could have been two books, one about how to be a PI, a how to guide, and a second book that was a memoir of this amazing man's career. Once I got 1/2 through and realized that I was no longer interested in my future self being a scruffy PI working from a small 2nd story office in the bad part of the old downtown, my focus was lost during the details of specific operations. Aside from not caring about the specifics of how to follow people for days on end and how to pee in what and where while on the road I thought it was a great read and would recommend it.
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