INTERPOL: The Inside Story of the International Crime-Fighting Organization

It's more intricate than the typical journalistic account depicts, more subtle than the fictitious Man From U.N.C.L.E.-type portrayal, often faster than a speeding jet plane -- it's Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, a bevy of talented, scientifically oriented, essentially unromantic supersleuths headquartered at Number 26 Rue Armengaud, Saint-Cloud, a Paris suburb. So says Fooner in this easily read and no less straightforwardly informative quasi-official tour of Interpol's origins which stretch back to the 19th century (but only in 1971 did the organization attain ""legitimacy""), its operational jurisdictions (111 countries are members, from Algeria to Zambia), its administrative organization and authority, and case histories of its criminal concerns (largely drugs, counterfeiting, financial fraud -- an approach to skyjacking is currently being debated). Unspectacular, unaffected, uncritical.