How to Be Your Own Detective - Softcover

Sherlock, Kevin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0918751500 ISBN 13: 9780918751508

Publisher: J. Flores Publications, 1709

Synopsis

There are many good reasons for you to know how to check people's backgrounds. If you're going to spend money on property, a car, or medical treatment, for example, you'd certainly like to know if the providers are honest and capable. Or what if you want to invest money or go into a business with a partner? You'd like to reassure yourself the guy is reasonably honest and didn't make his money on dope pushing, pimping, or insider trading!

Knowing how to check on someone is good for personal affairs as well. Would you like to know if your lover is hiding an unsavory past (or present) from you? Or what if you suspect your daughter's fiance is a lowlife? Would you like to know his criminal record?

Don't laugh! LBJ used FBI agents to check on one of the young bloods who was sniffing around after his girls; and they found out the guy DID have an undisclosed perversion! And the parents of Maria Barker Tanner – a young Ohio woman whose husband cut off her head with a butcher knife on Valentine's Day 1990 – told me Maria found out a lot of negative things about Raymond Tanner after their wedding. They told me they advise parents to check fiances from one end to the other!

But what if someone has already done you wrong? Wouldn't you like to find out how often a businessman who has cheated you has been prosecuted or sued for unethical business practices, and then use that information to hurt his business? Or, better yet, wouldn't you like to check on his assets so you'll know what to attach when you go to court against him? Wouldn't you like to trash some shyster lawyer or hack artist doctor by spreading the word about how often former clients have sued him or her for malpractice?

Or what if you're zealous for a cause or angry at a public official? Would you like to find out a politician's voting record? Would you like to know who's giving money to his campaigns, or would you like to know his financial interests? How would you like to be able to track waste, fraud, or abuses in government-funded projects? How would you like to find out what corporations get pinched for health, safety, labor, and/or environmental code violations? Would you like to know who the high-income tax deadbeats are in your area? How would you like to determine how many killers, white-collar criminals, and sex offenders your judges are turning loose on the public through technicalities?

This book will show you how to find out the following things:

– personal data and personal “dirt.”
– criminal records.
– lawsuits and other legal entanglements.
– real estate and land use information.
– corporate records and wrongdoing.
– labor, environmental, and health code violators.
– politicians' track records, holdings, and financial backers.
– government taxing, spending, and use of power.
– school spending and quality of education data.
– who's getting money from Uncle Sam, and why.
– coroner records, public health records, and malpractice records.

You don't need a fancy computer or access to all sorts of exotic data bases to do good citizen detective work. All you need, besides this book, are your own common sense and some persistence.

This book will also show you how to put the information you find to good use. It will show you how to use this information for business reasons, for personal reasons, or for “good citizenship” (muckraking) reasons. It will show you how to use this information to influence or expose government officials and business people. It will show you how to fight crimes of dishonesty and attack sex offenders. In short, this book can help you become better informed, it can help you protect yourself and your loved ones from the unscrupulous, it can help you expose and punish such people, and it can help you force positive change.

About this title

About the Author:

People who know Kevin Sherlock say he was meant to write a book like How To Be Your Own Detective. For Sherlock, a “digger” and “agitator” by blood, has spent more than a decade doing investigation and research work.

As an Army officer, Sherlock helped investigate suspects on charges ranging from felony assault to drug dealing to black marketeering to attempted rape. He helped get criminals punished and wrongfully-accused soldiers cleared. He also investigated civilians for discrimination against minority-group soldiers.

As a newspaper reporter, Sherlock uncovered and wrote on many incidents of politician finagling, corporate wrongdoing, child exploitation, court system breakdown, school system failure, and government waste and stupidity. Readers who liked him wrote in and compared him to the great muckrakers; officials who didn't like him called his bosses and compared him to the Inquisition. (Sherlock, a Catholic, called the critics “bigoted whiners.”)

As an independent investigator and researcher, Sherlock has found and documented police and prosecutor shortcomings, social worker and judge neglect of duty involving crimes against children, large-scale doctor malpractice involving treatment of women, government mistreatment of immigrants, cases of wrongful death, and incidents of white-collar misconduct.

Sherlock is the descendant of Irish and Slavic immigrants; many of his forebears fought for freedom in their homelands. Some became labor leaders or political leaders in America. One of his grandfathers was a Chicago police detective. One of his grandmothers was savvy enough to help locate and rescue a stolen child. "Agent 99", Sherlock's wife, comes from similar Irish and Slavic blood, and Sherlock is proud and happy to have her as his partner in business and in life.

Sherlock, who operates a technical publishing and research business says, “I wrote this book to make money, of course. But more importantly, I wrote it to help the average person find out things about government, corporations, and individuals. Short of the intervention of God, an informed public is our best defense against abuse.”

About this edition

• Publisher: J. Flores Publications
• Publication date: 1709
• ISBN 10: 0918751500
• ISBN 13: 9780918751508
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 254