Who are Private Investigators and what do they really do

Private investigators have been stereotyped by authors and the media over the years, not unlike Lawyers, Accountants or others in any other profession for that matter. Agatha Christie was to Private Investigators, what John Grisham is to Lawyers. Both authors seem to suffer from some kind of hero worship in the context of their given subject matter, and why not? The audiences love it.

So who are these mysterious P.I.’s? Are they the high-flyers like Simon Templar, perhaps unconventional gentlemen like Hercule Poirot? Or maybe eccentric old ladies, such as Miss Marple? Obviously none of the above, they are ordinary people who have a less than ordinary job. Many Private Investigators become so, not because it was a childhood ambition, but because of a chance meeting, being in a certain place at a certain time, or, at a certain point in time in their lives, they decided that Private Investigations was to be their new vocation. Ex-Police officers normally make up the bulk of the latter. In the West it seems, only middle aged Caucasian men who used to carry a badge or warrant card seem to make up the majority of the population in modern private investigation. Few women seem interested in the job, but suffice to say, even though they are in a minority, there are a great many of them still.

Being a Private Investigator for many, can be a lonely vocation with very anti-social hours, unstable income and few opportunities to network and socialise with others in or outside the profession. So what do they really do? The job description of the Private Investigator can range from the mundane to the absurd. The more mundane tasks such as locating people, serving legal documents and surveillance (yes, surveillance is very mundane most of the time!) make up the bulk of their work and income. The more interesting enquiries take place less often than one would imagine. If we were to believe that the characters created by the likes of Conan-Doyle, Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler, the job of the modern private investigator would be sexy, glamorous, and extremely well paid. Most Private Investigators in Britain are none of the above; this I can say with some authority having met a great many of them over the years, and I can include myself in this assessment.

Biography.

The author of this article is London based Private Investigator Alexander Moore of Alexander Moore & Associates. He has been a Private Eye since 1990, and is married with three children.