The Life Of PIs: Books, Blogs, And

Podcasts About Real Private Eyes

Ever since the birth of the modern-era crime story—arguably credited to Edgar Allen Poe—readers have been fascinated with police detectives and private investigators. The PI in particular inspires a lot of folks to say “I’d make a great private eye,” and some of them probably would—if they could get past the day-to-day grind of sweltering summer surveillance, lurking under the bleachers and kids’ soccer games, and unpaid invoices. Kim Green, former PI and editor of Pursuit magazine, says the job is nowhere as glamorous or romantic as it seems, having spent hours in her Honda shooting video of a drunk dad picking up the kids at school, tailing a septuagenarian who met her paramour for a snog behind Applebee’s, and exchanging texts with a guy who thought he was meeting her to sell her a stolen iPad —but found himself arrested instead. “The work was at moments thrilling but more often brutally tedious—and sometimes, just plain sad,” she writes in a Crime Reads article last week. “I’m thrilled to now have a job that keeps me in the game vicariously, by letting me meet real-life PIs from all over the world and learn how they ply their trade. They’re nothing like Philip Marlowe…they’re much more interesting.” With that in mind, Green offers a sampling of memoirs, blogs, podcasts, interviews, YouTube channels, and even novels by private investigators, all of which—to varying degrees—shine some light on the PI life.

At 6’3”, Alan Ritchson Is Imposing

And 100% Believable As Jack Reacher

Move over Tom Cruise…Alan Ritchson is here. The new eight-part Reacher series that debuts on Amazon Prime Video in early February is set to be packed with bare-knuckle fight scenes, clever stunts, gun battles, a hint of romance—and a lead character who, at 6’3” is, well, more fitting of the character created by author Lee Child. Based on his first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor, it follows the eponymous nomad as he turns up in the small town of Margrave, Georgia, to find a community dealing with its first murder in 20 years. The cops immediately arrest Reacher and eyewitnesses place Reacher at the scene of the crime. But while he works to prove his innocence, a deep-seated conspiracy begins to emerge. Ritchson is best known for playing Hank Hall (aka Hawk) in DC’s Titans, and Aquaman in Smallville; the Reacher cast also includes Harvey Guillén, Malcolm Goodwin, Willa Fitzgerald, and Maxwell Jenkins as Young Reacher. If you want a sneak peek, here’s a trailer that depicts Reacher’s arrival in the fictional community of Margrave, where seven deaths coincide with his appearance in town.

HBO’s Slow Hustle Examines Unsolved

2017 Death Of Baltimore Cop

The new HBO documentary The Slow Hustle examines the mysterious death of Baltimore cop Sean Suiter, who was set to testify against police corruption and then was found with a bullet in the head. On Nov. 15, 2017, Suiter was accompanying his rookie partner David Bomenka on an assignment when he allegedly spotted a suspicious figure in an alleyway in the city’s Harlem Park neighborhood. With Bomenka around the corner, Suiter approached this figure, shots were fired, and Bomenka raced to the scene, where—as frantic bodycam footage illustrates—he found Suiter lying dead. With no reliable eyewitnesses to the crime, a harried if largely clueless search ensued, most of it predicated on a generic description of a Black man in a dark jacket with a white stripe. The results of this quest were predictably meager, and it wasn’t long before pressure began to mount on Commissioner Kevin Davis—from both the public and the mayor—to find the assailant who killed this heroic cop in the line of duty. As The Daily Beast’s Nick Schager wrote last week, The Slow Hustle is "a story about racial unrest and institutional misconduct in Baltimore, all of it once again revolving around dirty cops and a dead Black man…It’s conceivable he was executed for planning to rat out his friends, shot in a random skirmish gone wrong, or killed by his own hand in order to avoid facing future legal prosecution.”

COLD CASE

Missing Auburn Student's Car,

Human Remains Found After 45 Years

Authorities searching for an Auburn University student who's been missing for more than 45 years got a big break after his car was found in an Alabama creek—along with his wallet, ID card, and suspected human remains. Kyle Clinkscales was last seen on the night of January 27, 1976, when he left his hometown of LaGrange, Georgia, to drive to back to campus in his 1974 Ford Pinto. The 22-year-old never arrived at the Alabama school and neither he nor the car were seen again— until possibly last Tuesday, when someone called 911 to report seeing what appeared to be a car in a creek off County Road 83 in Chambers County, AL, about three miles away from what would have been Clinkscales' normal route back to school. When authorities arrived, they saw the partially submerged vehicle and, after removing it from the water, local law enforcement determined it was a white Pinto with a license plate that matched Clinkscales' car. Authorities also discovered a wallet, credit cards, Clinkscales' ID, and several bones. "Just the fact that we have hopefully found him and the car brings me a big sigh of relief," Troup County Sheriff James Woodruff said, adding that Clinkscales' mother passed away earlier this year still hoping her son would come home.

10 Bingeable Shows Guaranteed

Too Keep the Holidays Weird

Baby, it’s cold outside…which means it’s the season to light that yule log on fire, pour a large glass of eggnog, and tune the old Smart TV  to your favorite new mystery movie, crime show, or thriller series. From the real-life 2003 murder of a pizza delivery man who was reportedly blackmailed into committing a bank heist with a bomb strapped to his neck, to a complex psychological thriller about imprisoned serial killers, to the shady side of L.A. celebrity culture, this list from the folks at Murder-Mayhem gives you a hint of the content waiting for you on such streaming services as Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu.

Give A Gift Of

Jack Connor This Year!

"Bunzel peels away the layers of mystery like a master of the genre” —T. Jefferson Parker

“Sweeps you in with intrigue and authority and never lets you go.” —Michael Connelly

“Lights up the Southern sky with taut, exciting action.” —Michael McGarrity

"It may be hot in South Carolina, but Iraq War vet and crime scene clean-up specialist Jack Connor is nothing but cool. Reed Bunzel has created a winning series." —Alafair Burke