Book Review: “The Modern Detective” by Tyler Maroney

The Modern Detective by Tyler Maroney

The title of this book is a bit deceptive.  It may be true that “Corporate Intelligence Is Rechaping the World”, but this book doesn’t really tell us that much about it.

For one thing, it’s mostly about The Modern Detective, not about “Corporate Intelligence”.  And it’s mainly a collection of cases the author knows about.  It’s a moderately interesting collection, not one divorce case. 

It’s also not even close to representative of what these investigators do.  Maroney is a ridiculuous pains to portray his profession as do-gooders.  His cases include tracking and taking down rich bastards and corporate scammers, helping unions and falsely convicted prisoners.

“This book is also an attempt to express my enthusiasm for this industry and to argue that as players in global commerce, political battles, and international litigation, we have become indispensable to those systems”.

([1], p. 12)

Nothing here about doxing citizen activists, stalking escaping spouses, or false flag political operations.  Nothing here about hacking phones, stealing digital data, or organized troll campaigns.

In short, nothing about the real world where the rich and powerful use “investigators” to crush the weak, protect their priviledge and wealth, and control the world.

Somehow, I’m not impressed with Maroney’s claims of virtue.

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1. Tyler Maroney, The Modern Detective: How Corporate Intelligence Is Reshaping the World, New York, Riverhead Books, 2020.

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