Th Detective’s Handbook was developed with the goal of providing a one-volume text that contains vital information to assist law enforcement officers to become better detectives.

Th work of detectives is involved and complex. Accordingly, not all essential aspects of the work can be covered in a one-volume work, so the editor attempted to select 20 of the most critical issues and present them in 20 separate chapters.

Each of the 19 contributors to this text presents key issues involved in the aspects covered by their chapters. The style and format of the chapters differ. We allowed the expert contributors latitude in presenting the material in a manner they were most comfortable with, rather than requesting that they follow strict guidelines and formats.

What is a detective? In this text, we refer to the position as if it is a detective in a law enforcement agency. While this text is probably valuable to a private detective, it is directed toward the public law enforcement officer. We use the concept of law enforcement departments to refer to police, sheriff, and other government agencies that are responsible for protecting the public.