At my writing site Colleen Collins Books, I’ve posted writers’ questions about private investigators naming sources and a PI’s believability when giving testimony.  Below is an excerpt:

Writer’s Question: You know how reporters don’t need to name their sources – what about P.I.s? Do [...]]]>

Private Investigators: Naming Sources, Credibility in the Courtroom

At my writing site Colleen Collins Books, I’ve posted writers’ questions about private investigators naming sources and a PI’s believability when giving testimony.  Below is an excerpt:

Writer’s Question: You know how reporters don’t need to name their sources – what about P.I.s? Do they need to name theirs?

Answer: PIs working for attorneys cannot reveal sources to third parties without the attorney’s permission.  If a P.I. isn’t working for an attorney, and there is no state statute protecting the P.I. (some state statutes create a legal privilege ensuring confidentiality for P.I.s and their sources), then the P.I. can be ordered by the court to reveal her source. Under these circumstances, if a PI is on the witness stand, and she refuses to identify her source for information, she could be held in contempt of court and jailed or fined.

Writer’s Question: Who is more likely to be believed in a courtroom, a policeman or a P.I.?  Here’s my take — the police are trustworthy, unimpeachable, and are therefore more likely to get the benefit of the doubt over a P.I., who’s …how can I say this…not as respected?

Answer:  Police usually win the credibility battle and the best way for a PI to contradict them is to have objective, physical evidence.  A P.I investigating a case, which may involve re-visiting a crime scene days or weeks later, works to gather compelling, objective evidence that can be used to counter or even refute what the P.I. has read in the police reports, and discredit police testimony.

To read the rest of this Q&A, click here.

Big City Noir: The Maltese Cat

Birgit Schössow, a young German artist, landed her third cover on The New Yorker, a noir sketch for their fiction issue.  To see it, and her noir comic The Maltese Cat, click here.

How to Attach a GPS Device Underneath a Vehicle

Curious how a PI might attach a real-time GPS device underneath a vehicle?  The opening scene in my mystery-romance novel The Next Right Thing shows a female private eye doing just that.  To read the scene, click here.

How to Say No to a Vehicle Search

Hopefully, you’ll never be in this situation, but if you are, here’s a handy article by Colorado criminal defense attorney Shaun Kaufman — to read about how to say no to a vehicle search, click here.

And for fun…The Cocktail Chart of Film and Literature

From The Dude’s White Russian in The Big Lebowski to Philip Marlowe’s favorite drink, the Gin Gimlet, here’s the Cocktail Chart of Film & Literature:

Have a great week!

I’m a stepmom to five children.  Of those, only one hounded me relentlessly to join me on an investigation, specifically on a surveillance.

I always told her no, which sparked conversations like this:

“Why not?” she’d ask.

“Because surveillances are not for children.”

“But I’m almost thirteen.”

“I rest my case.”

“But [...]]]>

I’m a stepmom to five children.  Of those, only one hounded me relentlessly to join me on an investigation, specifically on a surveillance.

I always told her no, which sparked conversations like this:

“Why not?” she’d ask.

“Because surveillances are not for children.”

“But I’m almost thirteen.”

“I rest my case.”

“But I’m not a child child, I’m a teenager.  Almost.”

“You’re too young to go on surveillance.  Ask me again when you’re twenty-one.”

“I promise to be very quiet,” she’d say, trying a new tact, “you won’t even know I’m there.”

“Surveillances are boring.”

“All the more reason to take me along!  I’ll keep you company.”

“Keep me company when we go grocery shopping.”

“You get easily lost,” she’d say, trying yet another approach.  ”I can read directions and help you.”

“I now use a GPS system, so I’m okay in the directions department.”

And so the discussions would go.

None of the other kids ever badgered me to tag along on a surveillance, or any other investigative task.  But this one, the youngest, just had a hankering for being a junior PI.  So she, my husband and I made up stories about a sleuth cat (named it Snoop Cat, stealing the name from Snoop Dog) and Snoop Cat’s sidekick, Detective Aretha (named after our dog, Aretha Franklin).  That satisfied some of her desire to be involved in investigations.  But every time I left for a surveillance, the debate over joining me would start anew.

With her burning desire to be a junior investigator, I figured she’d want to do something adventurous when she grew up.  This coming fall, she starts college.  Her major?  Business.  She’s asked if I’d like her to review the accounting books for the business.

I think we’ve finally found a way for her to be part of the PI biz.

When we started our private investigations agency back in 2003-2004, we invested a chunk of money in equipment upfront.  We were starting on a shoestring budget (like many PIs) , so we took great care to think about what equipment we absolutely, critically needed.  Our first question to ourselves was…

What Kind of [...]]]>

When we started our private investigations agency back in 2003-2004, we invested a chunk of money in equipment upfront.  We were starting on a shoestring budget (like many PIs) , so we took great care to think about what equipment we absolutely, critically needed.  Our first question to ourselves was…

What Kind of Investigations Will We Be Conducting?

My business partner had been a trial attorney for nearly two decades, and had trained many PIs in his practice, so he thought we’d primarily be conducting litigation support (which includes tasks such as locating witnesses and conducting interviews, serving legal papers, researching court records).  Yes, some of that work starting rolling in, but in the beginning, the bulk of our work came from several divorce attorneys who wanted us to conduct surveillances.  Then an insurance company contacted us and asked if we could also do surveillances.  So being able to conduct effective surveillances and produce quality evidence played a big part in what equipment we needed to buy.

Our Initial Equipment Purchases

Although we had a longer list of what tools we needed, here’s some of the key items:

A good-working car.   We had our favorite car-repair guys do a through once-over on the car–that last thing we needed was to be stuck somewhere with car problems.  We got new tires.  We wanted to tint the windows, but never got around to it.

Cell Phones.  Only one of us had a cell phone in 2003, and both of us needed to be reachable in real time.  These days, neither of us can imagine being without our smartphones.

Propriety Database.  From day one, we were locating witnesses for attorneys, and we wanted access to a proprietary database that would help us gather information more quickly and efficiently than juggling a variety of public resources, so we signed up with a proprietary database.  What’s a proprietary database?  Here’s a high-level explanation from our nonfiction book How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths:

Pay-per-use Proprietary Databases

We have several proprietary databases that are available only to PIs, law enforcement officers, consumer-credit professionals and others with a need to know. These databases are run by organizations that conduct background checks on all applicants, and they monitor the usage carefully (every time we use one of these databases, we are required to check all applicable legal reasons for running the check).  Each search costs money.

These proprietary databases cull their information from many different public record searches.  We recently asked one of the customer reps if she knew exactly what public records her proprietary database pulled from, and she said, “There’s so many, it’d take me a day to tell you just some of them.”  One proprietary database advertises they pull from billions of public records.

One of most used proprietary databases is IRBsearch. 

A good print camera.  Because attorneys had a hard time trusting the evidentiary integrity of the digital camera, we spent money on a top-quality print camera as well, along with a long-distance lens.  We only used it for approximately one year and a half, though, as our attorney-clients started trusting the digital age more.

A good digital camera.  We invested in one good digital camera in the beginning, as well as a long-distance lens.

A video camera.  We needed to document people in action, especially for the insurance company, so a video camera was essential.  Just as some of our attorney-clients didn’t trust the digital age, neither did the insurance company.  After every surveillance, we had to courier to them the original video tape.  By the time we left working for this insurance company two years after we started our investigations business, they still didn’t trust digital data.  We figured they’d be changing their stance on that in the near future.

But they didn’t. Three or four years later, their new PI contacted us. What video tape equipment did we recommend?  We strongly suggested he consider using digital video equipment — not only was tape equipment going the way of the dinosaur, but when he eventually moved to digital it would be an extra cost to transfer tape to CDs or other media.  Also, it was going to become more difficult to play tapes in courtroom situations as tape-playing devices grew older and more problematic, and digital images were clearer, easier to review, and so on.  ”Yeah, I know,” he said, “but the insurance company refuses to use anything other than tape.”

We’d bet good money they feel differently today!

As Our Business Expanded, We Purchased More Equipment

As our business picked up, and both of us started going out in the field, we needed several digital cameras and video cameras.  As digital video cameras became less expensive, we purchased several of those, too.

When we were invited to conduct undercover investigations by several national retail companies, we began investing in covert gear.  Below are a few of those items:

• Video camera built into a purse.
• Pinhole cameras.  Literally how they sound–the lens fits through a hole, such as through a button in a shirt.
• Small camera that fit onto a keychain. 
• GPS device.
  Important Note: It is critical for a PI to understand and comply with state and federal laws regarding the use of such device to avoid charges of stalking and wiretapping.  Seems so obvious, and yet there will be some renegade PI who uses a GPS illegally, gets caught, and is lucky if he/she only ends up paying thousands of dollars to an attorney to keep him/her out of prison.

All of the above covert devices solved cases, including several major ones.

And then there was the covert gear that bombed, for example:

• A cigarette lighter with a built-in camera (we tried and tried to make it work, finally gave up)
• A wristwatch with a built-in voice recorder (instructions were so complicated, and badly written, we finally returned the watch-device to its manufacturer).

Along Came the Smartphone

It’s ten years since we founded our investigations company.  We’ve gravitated to different careers now (my then-partner-boyfriend is now my husband and a trial attorney again — I’m writing pretty much full-time, while periodically conducting an investigative task for my husband’s law firm and the occasional attorney-client).

When it comes to equipment these days, I grab my smartphone.  It takes excellent photos and video, for starters, which I can immediately send to the lawyer.  Other apps I use:

• Flashlight app.  Why carry a clunky flashlight when you can just turn on your flashlight app?  I also have a flashlight-magnifier app that not only shines a bright light on the scene/object, which I can zoom in on if necessary, I can also capture the image and send it via email or other program to a client.
• Document Scanner.  I’ve gone through several of these as I discover better document scanner apps. A few years back, we had a hand-held doc scanner we’d take into courthouses and other places to scan docs. The thing was a hassle to carry, and often cumbersome to use, but we loved being able to scan our documents on-site and download a digital file to our computer. Now I use a scanner on my smartphone that captures the image, lets me crop/enlarge a portion of it, choose what format I want to save it in (pdf, jpeg, etc.), as well as the option to email (or send via another venue, such as text message) on the spot.
• Homesnap: Take a picture of a home, get a download of information about the house, such as homeowner history, sales prices, home description, neighborhood stats and more.
• Voice recorder.  I’ve seen these in the movies now, too, where reporters shove their smartphones with a recorder app running (instead of a microphone) into someone’s face.

Having a smartphone means my equipment bags (yes, I used to carry at least one) are now reduced to a single smartphone. Sometimes I look at all that old equipment in our office and think of all the money we spent for things we no longer use.  Seems a shame to give it away — surely there’s a use for it somewhere.

Maybe we should open a PI Museum?

March marks the release of Colleen’s new novel, The Next Right Thing, a private-eye romance that features Las Vegas PI Cammie Copello.  In conjunction with the book release, Colleen has written several articles on private investigations, geared for writers and others interested in the real world of private detectives. [...]]]> Articles on Private Investigations

March marks the release of Colleen’s new novel, The Next Right Thing, a private-eye romance that features Las Vegas PI Cammie Copello.  In conjunction with the book release, Colleen has written several articles on private investigations, geared for writers and others interested in the real world of private detectives.  To read an article, click on the link:

How Dangerous Is It to Be a Female Private Eye? (Morgen Bailey blog)

Six Tips for Writing a Private Eye Character (Savvy Authors)

Lessons in Storytelling: The 1944 Noir film DOUBLE INDEMNITY (Colleen Collins Books)

Looking Under the Alibi: The Work of a Legal Investigator (Beth Groundwater blog)

Free Book Giveaways, Contests, Bargain Books

Throughout March, there are giveaways for free copies of The Next Right Thing and Amazon gift cards, free downloads of The Zen Man, and How Do Private Eyes Do That? for .99! Check them all out below.

March 3-6: How Do Private Eyes Do That? is only .99! To download your e-copy, click here or click on banner:

March 4-6: The Zen Man is free! To download your-ecopy, click here or click on banner:

Colleen Collins Books: Contest Deadline March 31: Three winners each receive a print copy of The Next Right Thing, with the two top winners each also receiving a $20 Amazon gift card. To enter the contest, click here.

Beth Groundwater’s Blog: March 6: Colleen will be a guest blogger at mystery writer Beth Groundwater’s blog on March 6, at which time she’ll be giving away two print copies of The Next Right Thing.  Winner’s names will be randomly selected from all who leave comments.  Link forthcoming. To visit Beth’s blog, click here.

Coffee Time Romance: Contest Deadline March 31: A $25 Amazon gift card and a print copy of The Next Right Thing ​are being given away this month at Coffee Time Romance. In this contest, Colleen invites you to sleuth out a scene in the book (posted on her website) and answer three questions.​  ​To go to the contest, click here.

Good luck!

Praise for The Next Right Thing

“A heart-warming family story set against the razzle-dazzle of Vegas.  Private investigator Cammie Copello is charming and fearless!” ~USA Today Best-selling Author Cassie Miles

“Colorful, skillful description and lively, fully fleshed-out characters contribute to this great read.” ~RT Book Reviews

To read a book excerpt of The Next Right Thing, click here.

To order print or ebook copies of The Next Right Thing, click here.

People have been inspired to write recipes honoring Chandler, although surprisingly nobody has done an angel food cake one.  However, there are a variety [...]]]> (Enter Colleen’s March Giveaway: Win Books and More!)

He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food. -Raymond Chandler

People have been inspired to write recipes honoring Chandler, although surprisingly nobody has done an angel food cake one.  However, there are a variety of Chandleresque recipes, some quite entertaining to read, from a Raymond Chandler’s Pulp Fiction Noir Mother’s Day Cake to Lamb with Dill Sauce a la Raymond Chandler.

Chandler seemed to have some interest in writing a cookbook himself.  While working on The Long Goodbye, he wrote in a letter to his editor Dale Warren, “…any decent cookbook should have a few special recipes, a touch of the unique. And this I could easily supply.”

Wonder what he would have titled it? The Simple Art of Cooking? Murder, My Sweets?

Now let’s look at some Chandler-inspired recipes, starting with…

The Big Sleep Cupcakes

(From The Dusty Baker blog)

These cupcakes are a decadent mix of dark chocolate, bourbon, cold cherries, and topped with a coffee, whiskey and vanilla frosting…and a candy cigarette.

To read the recipe, click here.

Raymond Chandler: Swordfish Sicilia

(From Paper and Salt blog)

This writer has delved into Chandler’s thoughts on food (his recipe for pork chops: “Cook them in their own fat, they bring everything with them that is necessary except salt and pepper”).  On the day of what would have been Chandler’s 124th birthday, the writer of the Paper and Salt blog decided to create a swordfish dish, based on a reference Chandler once made to his own signature dish “Swordfish Mascagni.”  There is no documented Chandler recipe for Swordfish Mascagni, so this writer created Swordfish Sicilia in his honor.

To read the recipe, click here.

Lamb with Dill Sauce à la Raymond Chandler

(from FT.com)

This recipe is an excerpt from Kafka’s Soup: A Complete History of Literature in 17 Recipes, written and illustrated by Mark Crick.  The imaginary cook starts out talking, in first person, about how he’s smoking a whiskey sour while grinding out his cigarette on the chopping board (you’ll notice this inspired the next Chandler recipe writer in her first-person essay, too).

The recipe provides the ingredients up front, but ya gotta read the fiction piece to get the instructions, pal.

To read the recipe, click here.

Raymond Chandler’s Pulp Fiction Noir Mother’s Day Cake

(From Linda Seccaspina’s blog)

Linda Seccaspina writes a fun, tongue-in-cheek Chandler opening to her recipe, from grinding out her cigarette on the top of the cookbook to roughing up the eggs for the batter (inspired by Mark Crick’s recipe, above).  Then she wraps it up with a rich chocolate cake and Kahlua frosting.

To read the recipe, click here.

Raymond Chandler Gimlet

(From theKitchn blog)

“A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else. 
It beats martinis hollow.” -Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

And with that quote, Nora Maynard first gives a history of the tangy old-time cocktail; then guidelines for how to choose the best ingredients; followed by a overview of whether to shake, stir, pour on the rocks or serve it straight up; and then the recipe:

Gimlet
makes one drink

2 ounces gin (or vodka)
2/3 ounces Rose’s or other preserved, sweetened lime juice
lime wedge, for garnish

Pour gin and lime juice into a rocks glass. Add ice and stir. Garnish with a wedge of lime.

Related Articles

Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles by James Walton, Travel

The Reading Life: Happy birthday to me – and Raymond Chandler by Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times

A Gimlet for Mr. Chandler by Robert F. Moss, The Rap Sheet

I’m on deadline writing a book featuring a female private eye protagonist (what a surprise, eh?).  I’m on chapter 4.  Book is due April 1.  Makes you want to start drinking martinis at 7 a.m., doesn’t it?

Before before I start pounding the keyboard, today I’m sharing some fun stuff, from a cool-looking [...]]]> The Deadline

I’m on deadline writing a book featuring a female private eye protagonist (what a surprise, eh?).  I’m on chapter 4.  Book is due April 1.  Makes you want to start drinking martinis at 7 a.m., doesn’t it?

Before before I start pounding the keyboard, today I’m sharing some fun stuff, from a cool-looking new emagazine to Nancy Drew recipes to a book-and-other-goodies contest.

Noir Magazine

It’s out and it’s bad.  As in good.  Noir magazine advertises itself as the “first of its kind tablet magazine for the mystery, thriller, and true crime genres in all mediums.”  First cover with its smoking gun and the word NOIR at the top looks slick (to view, click here).  Its advisory board includes such names in the crime novel field as Ace Atkins, Michael Connelly, Sara Gran, Robert Crais.

I want to buy a subscription, bad.  As in good.  No, as in bad.  I’m on deadline.  I find enough distractions without buying a cool emag to read.  Maybe I’ll make it a reward after I hit chapter 16 (I’m big on rewards while writing — the carrot dangling over the laptop approach).

But if you want to buy, click here.  Just don’t tell me how good it is until I finish drafting chapter 16.

Nancy Drew Recipes

I recently posted the Nancy Drew cocktail, but did you know there’s a cookbook with Nancy Drew recipes, too?

NancyDrewSleuth.com posts the articles and recipes from the 1973 The Nancy Drew Cookbook: Clues to Good Cooking.  Clueful recipes include Coded Steak Rolls, Mystery Corn Pudding and The Case of the Smothered Pork Chops.  Check it out by clicking here.

Win a Free Book, an Amazon Gift Card and More!

Over at Colleen Collins Books, my alternate-reality site, I’m throwing a free-book-and-other-stuff contest through February 14 to celebrate the launch of my romantic-mystery novel The Next Right Thing, available March 2013.

I’m throwing a contest to give away advance copies of the book (the top two winners also receive either a $25 Amazon gift card or a half-pound box of decadent Godiva chocolates).  Had to offer chocolates — this is a Valentine’s Day contest.

How to Enter

Fill out the form at the bottom of this post.  Enter every day if you’d like–the top 5 winners are those with the most points.

Have a great weekend, Colleen
a Rafflecopter giveaway

There’s plenty of cocktails named after the hardboiled private dicks like Philip Marlowe’s Gimlet or the intellectual detective, like the smoky Sherlock Holmes cocktail, which by the way includes Sherlock’s favorite tea, Lapsang souchong.

But there’s also a few cocktails named after some of our favorite lady sleuths, from the [...]]]> Happy New Year!  

There’s plenty of cocktails named after the hardboiled private dicks like Philip Marlowe’s Gimlet or the intellectual detective, like the smoky Sherlock Holmes cocktail, which by the way includes Sherlock’s favorite tea, Lapsang souchong.

But there’s also a few cocktails named after some of our favorite lady sleuths, from the Honey West martini to the sweet Nancy Drew.

The Honey West Martini

Honey West liked her martinis with gin and vermouth, on the rocks. Although she wore leopard prints and had an ocelot as a pet, she liked her martinis simple and strong.  Maybe because she liked to use her fake olive on a stick to bug conversations.

However, the Honey West restaurant and lounge in Burlington, Canada, has a slew of “HW” cocktails, from the HW Martini to the HW Cosmo.  Check them out by clicking here.

The Nancy Drew

At A Crimson Kiss blog, the author adapted this cocktail recipe from Post Prohibition’s The Lady Detective, omitting the coconut foam, to create The Nancy Drew: