Making Crime Pay: The Writer's Guide to Criminal Law, Evidence, and Procedure [Paperback]

Andrea Campbell (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1581152167 | ISBN-13: 978-1581152166 | Publication Date: March 1, 2002

MAKING CRIME PAY is an invaluable reference to criminal law, evidence, and procedure and the potential it holds for breathtaking plots and dramatic storytelling. Readers will learn in detail how criminal law has evolved historically, discover the differences between crimes and how they are judged in the eyes of the law, and understand law's mechanisms and loopholes from the first thought of a crime to the offender's arrest and trial.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

A Smart Accomplice for Future Grishams and Highsmiths / In MAKING CRIME PAY, Forensic Expert and Writing Coach Andrea Campbell Unravels the Maze of Criminal Justice

Rising white collar crime, increased gang activity, terrorist attacks. . . the world is full of real-life crime stories, and a solid understanding of current law is needed to render them convincingly. "Mystery or crime writers need to have their fingers on the pulse of new legislation and the most current Justice Department and law enforcement thinking, " says the forensic expert and writing coach Andrea Campbell. In MAKING CRIME PAY, she presents a compact guide to the legal know-how that makes for authentic and suspenseful crime stories.

From the Author

"If the writer makes one false move with a statute, applies one incorrect use of jargon, or wends his way into some type of character misrepresentation, his work is sure to wind up as cold and dead as the make-believe victim." Andrea S. Campbell, in MAKING CRIME PAY

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Allworth Press (March 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581152167
• ISBN-13: 978-1581152166
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,403,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrea Campbell is the author of many traditionally-published nonfiction books and she specializes in forensic science, criminal law, entertaining and more (a motley mix for sure). A hound for research anything she studies finds its way into print.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Save your money, save your nerves, buy something else, July 29, 2007

By 

R. Parrott - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Making Crime Pay: The Writer's Guide to Criminal Law, Evidence, and Procedure (Paperback)

This book has to be the worst writing resource I have ever used: terrible formatting, mistakes in both text and facts, worthless examples no one could possibly gain knowledge from reading, ultra-neo-con perspective not fit for a reference book, and many other problems besides! I can't imagine this book helping anyone! What a crock! I would have been better off using wikipedia and we all know how inaccurate that is! If I could get my money back, I definitely would! Avoid the mistake I have made, choose another guide.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A satisfying beginning to studying crime for fiction writers, April 11, 2011

By 

S. Cave (Puyallup, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Making Crime Pay: The Writer's Guide to Criminal Law, Evidence, and Procedure (Paperback)

Criminals and their crimes have long been used in modern fiction to add excitement and realism. Getting the facts surrounding these crimes, though, can be deadly to a writer. Making Crime Pay, written by Andrea Campbell, provides writers with a comprehensive, thorough, and quite detailed reference regarding crimes and their perpetrators.

The book is divided into three parts, after the opening preface, The Drama of Crime. Ms. Campbell, a specialist in Forensic Science, member of the International Association of Identification, and diplomate fellow with the American College of Forensic Examiners, suggests that "The smart writer prepares for the journey ahead of time." Although, admittedly, procedures and strategies of the criminal court system vary from state to state, Making Crime Pay offers the writer enough information that the writer can "manipulate [the rules] with confidence."

Part I, Criminal Law Explained, is divided into six chapters, including The Evolution of Law, Crimes Defined, Crimes Against the Person, and Defenses, Justification, and Excuse. Within this Section and all others are sidebars entitled FYI, Writer Jump-Start, Writer's Tip. Instead of Making Crime Pay being a book for lawyers, which writers would then be forced to struggle to interpret, these sidebars make this book invaluable to writers specifically, with the author's knowledge of what information within this subject would make a writer's job simpler.

Part II, Criminal Procedure and Evidence, includes four chapters, including Search, Seizure and Arrest, Rights of the Accused, and Men in Blue. Procedures for arrest and proper procedures, including such details and photographs of search warrants, lend details to the writer which may not be readily available to them elsewhere. Real-life examples of cases, crimes and arrests are given, as well as details regarding the actual trying of crimes in a court of law.

Part III, A Walk Through the Criminal Justice System, offers up four chapters, with such titles as Arrest, Charges and Booking, Juvenile Justice, and Anatomy of a Trial. Topics include pleas, bail, the history of juvenile justice, and the job of lawyers, both in defense and prosecution of criminals.

While, of course, one book cannot possibly present every single scenario a writer may wish to use within their fiction, Ms. Campbell has done a good job getting us started. The book's appendix includes short sections on what happens after the trial, where writers can obtain further research, and the rights the prisoners do not have.

Making Crime Pay is not a book to be read once and put away on a shelf. It is a book to be kept at hand, to refer to over and over again, as a writer needs information to add authenticity to his or her books. Ms. Campbell has, indeed, done a great service to writers everywhere in putting together this wide-ranging interpretation of our legal system. I recommend you purchase this book and let your imagination be tantalized by all the new ideas that will grow from within the pages of Making Crime Pay.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars packed with detailed information, April 14, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Making Crime Pay: The Writer's Guide to Criminal Law, Evidence, and Procedure (Paperback)

I don't know how long it took Campbell to research this book, but I suspect it was years and years. What a wealth of information for a writer or anyone interested in crime and how it's dealt with. Amazing!