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Notes -
Echoing my question buried deep in the thread: can anyone recommend a good historical source to read up on the AIDS crisis, that's less opinionated than the Salo forum?
Has anyone here ever had an experience with hiring a private detective? Is they way they are portrayed in the movies or books pure fiction?
My firm has contracted private detectives semi-regularly to do background checks on key figures in legal matters, including our clients and their associates. On occasion, we've also contracted them to "dig for dirt" on parties on the other side of the case (usually financial malfeasance and things of that nature), but this isn't a common thing. It only comes up in obvious cases when we already have strong reason to suspect there's been malfeasance.
Whether the portrayals are accurate depends on the kinds of fiction you're consuming. The NYPD and Scotland Yard don't work with "consulting detectives" to solve murders, so that part is complete fiction. I suppose it's possible that private clients may hire private detectives to investigate murders if they're unsatisfied with the police resolution or handling of the matter, but I've never personally come across something like that. My experience with private detectives as an attorney is that they're either doing corporate investigations that we can't be bothered to do ourselves, or they're snooping on wives and husbands for things to use in custody battles ("she has a drinking problem she's been hiding from the court", "his best friend is a convict on parole", etc).
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I've hired several, always to retrieve items from courthouses that were too far for me to go to myself. They can search for records reasonably well, but I wouldn't trust any of them to solve a murder or anything.
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And The Band Played On is probably the most famous mainstream account of the early HIV/AIDS crisis and was written by a San Francisco Chronicle reporter who later died of AIDS himself. Interestingly he does lay some of the blame at the feet of promiscuity in the gay subculture of the time, which actually drew increasing criticism through the ‘90s, much of it posthumous as he died in 1994. Iirc the Salo account uses it as a source, though I don’t remember and it’s been years since I read either of them.
I think in real life private detectives are more specialized than in the movies and almost never investigate homicides - certainly not during the initial police investigation - which seems to be the big difference. As I understand there tend to be a few types: the private eye firms who do divorces, infidelity, background checks on daughters-in-law commissioned by overbearing mothers, attorneys during an active case against their client, that kind of thing. Then there are big corporate investigations firms like Kroll and others who do more complete private investigation, find witnesses, work internationally to track laundered money, do government work, that kind of thing. Then lastly there are a bunch of retired detectives for hire who attorneys, families and individuals hire when they’re unsatisfied with a police investigation / cold case stuff, where the aim is to find new evidence to reopen an investigation, bring an appeal etc.
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