Gadget

Inspector Gadget's book has just gone to the printers. It picks up from where Wasting Police Time and Diary of an On Call Girl left off, taking the whole scandal of the British criminal justice system on a lot further.
Tonally and structurally, it's much more like Copperfield than Bloggs. Where DOCG is a very funny, quite surreal and novelistic, the other two are straightforward, to-the-point and shocking.
As an Inspector, Gadget has a far broader, more strategic view of what's going on than did PC Copperfield, and it shows.
One scam he discusses is the credit card 'double theft' fiddle. Here's how it works:
Smith has his Barclaycard stolen and £300 is taken from his account.
He rings the police and the police record it as a theft of £300.
A week later, the card turns up when the thief is nicked for something else.
The police now record the theft of the card itself - ie the little bit of (now) worthless plastic.
They phone Smith.
Police: 'Mr Smith, good news. We've got the thief. We know you've stopped the card, but it is your property. Do you want us to send it back to you or just cut it up and chuck it?'
Smith: 'Nah, just cut it up for me, ta.'
Police: 'OK - we'll just send someone round to take a quick statement from you.'
Result: TWO thefts detected ('solved'), one of them for the theft of a little piece of plastic, 'nominal value, under £1'.
Detection rate for theft doubles instantly.
Jacqui Smith issues press release talking about how crime is coming down.
Gadget is a very bright bloke with a life before policing that would surprise you, a lot. He also writes about the emotional side of policing: reading how he held a mother as she died in her wrecked car, it's hard not to get a little choked up.
His book has just been chosen as reviewer Sue Baker's top recommendation in Publishing News' November Mass Market Paperbacks feature, out on July 18.
Meanwhile, PC Bloggs has just been commissioned to write a piece for the influential Conservative magazine Salisbury Review, where she will (we believe) be appearing alongside the nonpareil Theodore Dalrymple. Slightly strangely, Johann Hari (Indie columnist) asked for a copy of her book the other day. We're expecting a hatchet job, but these are strange times.
Finally, did you know that globalisation means that the people who take your order over the intercom at many drive-thru McDonalds in the USA are actually doing so from Bangalore? It's all in this fascinating and slightly frightening book.