Reference Reviews

Doug’s Student Reference Room

Surveillance. Andrew A. Kling. 104 p. Farmington Hills, MI: Lucent Books. ISBN 13: 978-1-59018-991-7; ISBN 10: 1-59018-991-4. $32.45.

If the public’s notions of crime investigations are derived largely from the routine misrepresentations on television, then one of the strongest of those notions is the drudgery of police surveillance work. The common image is of two officers sitting uncomfortably in a sedan on a darkened street in the middle of the night, drinking bad coffee, fighting boredom and fatigue. Surveillance, a new title in Lucent’s Crime Scene Investigations series, does a good job of dispelling that myth. The volume’s introduction recounts the case of a girl police assumed had run away; surveillance tapes from a local car wash actually recorded the girl’s abduction by a man who lived nearby, and the case was solved. The opening chapters provide detailed explanations of videotape surveillance; the technological advances have been extensive in recent years, and students attracted to digital technologies of all types may find interest here, too. Other chapters explore the way surveillance experts work with other members of an investigative team and the power that photographic and video evidence can have in creating a strong case. Color photos and illustrations, as well as several sidebars highlighting key facts, new technologies and career options, add interest. A glossary, recommended additional reading and an index conclude the volume. Recommended for school and public libraries for pleasure reading or research in grades six through nine.
—Doug Achterman