When people talk about private investigation, they rarely see the business side of it. People think that private investigation is all about mind work and creeping around following people, but not many people think about the costs and profits of the business. Private investigation is a business; there can be no doubt about that.
Portrayals of private investigators in popular media and literature make it seem as if private investigators had unlimited resources to use in their investigations. Some fictional private investigators, like Sherlock Holmes, make it seem as if the private investigation business was lucrative. They portray situations when a client is willing to part with very large amounts in order to get help. Reality, however, is so much more brutal than fiction.
Rarely do private investigators get called upon by heads of governments. Rarely do they get millions of dollars in jewels or cash as rewards for their brilliance. In fact, when you examine the situations of private investigators today, you would realize that the reasons most continue in this line of work are not monetary in nature. Many private investigators continue in the line of work seeking...