An examination of the culture of London's East End and its relationship with the Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Police, concentrating on entrepreneurship, crime and delinquency, and the history of detective work in London.

A biography of a research project - perusing Plod with a view from the chaps; a natural history of the British police - the contradiction of control; the 1960s - investigation and myth; a natural history of the CID - the 1960s and 1970s - a polarization of policing ideologies; the history of East London - a stroll down Felony Lane; the adolescent entrepreneur - youth, style and cultural inheritance; East End entrepreneurship; recruitment, presentation, and paper - the organizational context of detective entrepreneurship; trading places - symbiotic control and occupational imagery. Postscript - back to the future. Appendix: nostalgia rules - hokey cokey. Bibliography. Index.

`This is the best book I've read for a long time ... it is a first-rate example of how the best ethnographic studies can demonstrate the relationships between history, social structure and subjectivity ... Throughout, the already elegant text is enlivened by the colourful and informative stories, analyses and arguments of the (legal and illegal) wheeler dealers themselves ... Doing the Business can be unreservedly recommended to lay readers for its intelligence, verve and penetrating analysis of police work. For the same reasons, of course, the book will be popular with students of criminology, social work, social history and sociology. But to students the book offers much more than a satisfying literary and academic experience - it is excellent value in terms of the wide range of topics it covers ... having run out of superlatives all I can now say is: read it! It's a winner.' Pat Carlen, University of Keele, Centre for Criminology

`This is the best book I've read for a long time ... it is a first-rate example of how the best ethnographic studies can demonstrate the relationships between history, social structure and subjectivity ... Throughout, the already elegant text is enlivened by the colourful and informative stories, analyses and arguments of the (legal and illegal) wheeler dealers themselves ... Doing the Business can be unreservedly recommended to lay readers for its intelligence, verve and penetrating analysis of police work. For the same reasons, of course, the book will be popular with students of criminology, social work, social history and sociology. But to students the book offers much more than a satisfying literary and academic experience - it is excellent value in terms of the wide range of topics it covers ... having run out of superlatives all I can now say is: read it! It's a winner.' Pat Carlen, University of Keele, Centre for Criminology `Dick Hobbs sharply and amusingly describes his odyssey in research, displays a gallery of East End entrepreneurial types and provides some useful hints on how to behave down Whitechapel way ... Hobbs sees the pathos, the pettiness and the poverty of the culture, he describes from the inside.' Times Literary Supplement `offers some unique and poignant insights into an area popularised by many recent television series ... refreshingly different and well worth a read' The Police History Society Newsletter `He has written a fascinating and thought-provoking book and while acknowledging the difficulties facing the researcher who is an insider, he demonstrates the benefits that can accrue. He is a participant, he belongs, and while he is sensitive to his culture and its language, he does not become an apologist.' Times Higher Education Supplement `This is an effectionate and highly entertaining portrait of East Enders. It is written with immense charm and wit ... Immensely enjoyable, difficult to put down.' P.A.J. Waddington, University of Reading. British Journal of Criminology