There’s nothing new about private investigators and operatives; as early as the nineteenth century, mill and mine owners paid the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to infiltrate and disrupt labor union movements. But Meier makes the case for taking a close look now at what he calls the “private spy” industry, arguing that operatives-for-hire in the twenty-first century are no longer “content to lurk in the shadows” and have “become more emboldened than ever before.”