Review of Private Eye, Secret Spy

[Padmapriya R]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Private Eye, Secret Spy" by Ian D. Withers.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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Ian Withers is a London-based private investigator. The book Private Eye Secret Spy is the autobiography of the PI. The book begins with the present, metropolitan police arresting him as a suspect for murdering Gérard Hoarau after several years of his death. Then he slowly leads us to the one particular event in Hong Kong, which was a life-turning moment for him that made him decide to stay as a private investigator. Further, he briefly explains his family, his childhood, and the early days of his life, how he switches between various jobs before landing as a private investigator. He mentions some of his cases which involved debt collection, surveillance of spouses, retrieving children and uniting them with parents, and other unique cases. And he explains how life was a bed of roses with its thorns as well. He faced deep down hardships and as well praised successes. His hard work and passion for his job had him even deal with cases as a government representative for various nations.

Withers navigates us so well through his 41 chapters with his descriptive skills and comic sense. In a lot of cases, I could sense the professionalism of Ian Withers and his determination to finish a job which is a role model to anyone, also the fact that he tried to act according to his consciousness, avoided doing anything illegal even he got chance to. His experiences got me to lose the track of his age, at one point I was very shocked to know he was in his 40s in the decade of 80s. He elaborates the types of cases he handled so well, that the readers get a feeling that they worked with him for his cases. I got the feeling of reading a real James Bond diary and was a little jealous of his work.

There is no negative aspect that I can point out in this book.

I would rate this book a 3 out of 4 stars. The book is very well professionally edited. The reason I give this book 3 stars is that at some point I felt that Withers hasn’t expressed much of his failed works which are too hard for me to believe that he had never failed much in his career.

I would recommend this book to readers particularly interested in real-life crime documentaries and people who are interested in reading thriller genre stories. I would also suggest this book to aspiring detectives.

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Private Eye, Secret Spy
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