cover image True Detective

True Detective

William Parkhurst. Crown Publishers, $18.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-517-56554-4

One private detective quoted here describes his work as ``boring, boring, boring,'' but this entertaining volume gives the lie to that observation. Parkhurst ( How to Get Publicity ) concentrates on four agencies, three of them in the New York metropolitan area and the other, bounty hunters, in Virginia, and details their absorbing cases. One investigation involves the wife of a business executive who is having an affair with her husband's partner, another the search for a mother who gave her child up for adoption, yet another, theft from an art museum in Philadelphia. The PI's work is shown to be heavily dependent on the acquisition of information, whether from bugs or the assumption of false identities on the telephone, and the depiction of the ingenuity and dedication of these operatives makes for a gripping book. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Feb.)