Wise As A Serpent; Gentle As a Dove: Dealing With Deception

An excellent book by noted Statement Analyst Peter Hyatt.It covers several cases which i am familiar with and explains clearly, concisely and in an easy to follow manner why deception was indicated and also examples that i was not familiar with.it took me through the basic principals of SA such as pronouns, tenses and articles, which even i could follow( i learned my grammar via french lessons)There was an extra chapter 14 which wasn't listed, i guess that comes under the BOGOF chapter offer , it is however worth it.After reading this book i and i suspect many other readers will wonder why, with such compelling evidence both forensic and linguistic ( their own words spoken in the process of free editing) the subjects/suspects/POI are still running around free.In the case of Hailey Dunn in particular, why her mom and the mom's boyfriend aren't in jail on the child porn charges and bestiality images found on various electronic items?This would be a start and would be a good incentive for them to start talking.The principals learned in this book can be applied to any situation be it a criminal case, a political speech, a statement from your favorite celebrity, friends and family, although, if you use the pricipals learned on your family and friends you may end up losing them, use them only as a last resort in such cases and be prepared for the painful truth in some cases.Use what you learn wisely, listen closely to what the subjects says rather than what you think they said( and what they want you to believe)I Hope Peter does further books covering not only high profile criminal cases such as casey anthony, oj simpson, lance armstrong and the like, also covering missing persons cases where there has been no arrests made despite all the evidence, perhaps one on missing children, another perhaps on missing adults such as Susan Cox or David Hartley,Perhaps one looking at political statements such as nixon or clinton , another covering sports stars.There could be a whole library of books.PS You will find , once you have learned the basics of statement analysis, you will find adverts even more irritating than before.It will also makes reading books or watching a movie/ tv show interesting as you can practice on the fly and see if you are right.

I thoroughly enjoy the interesting cases Mr. Hyatt teaches about on his blog, youtube videos, and in this book. There is a lot of useful information in here, but I'll need to re-read this again (and again) so it can all sink in. It's a lot to digest, particularly if you will only have verbal statements or casual conversations to work with as opposed to videos you can replay and written statements to analyze.My few concerns about this book revolve around the lack of editing which irritates and distracts me. From typos and punctuation to grammatical and syntax errors, as well as typesetting issues, there's a lot of room for improvement which, if corrected, would give the book, and Mr. Hyatt, a much more professional presentation. Makes me curious as to why Mr. Hyatt published this book without consulting with a professional for his/her advoce. Was he in a rush? Did he not feel the need for an editor or proofreader?

Peter Hyatt's book is a book born of deep feeling. He hates injustice. And He learned from Avinoam Sapir a technique to sort out the liars from the rest. He shows us the devastation of the crimes, the need for justice, and a means to help deliver it. And all it takes is really honed and trained listening. Most liars will out themselves. We just have to listen and note it, to catch their inconsistencies.I enjoyed practicing and missing important elements in their speech, written down, which Hyatt carefully analyzed. But I got better.I gave it a 4, because it was so helpful an introduction. I would have given a 5, if the book had done 2 things:1) Have been edited and checked before making it an ebook. There are horrible mistakes of grammar and syntax, misspellings, missing words, and messed up formatting. There is inconsistent bold, italic and section heading type. There is an extra "chapter 14" in an earlier chapter. Chapters don't start on new pages, etc.2) Have included charts to summarize points. I still may do it myself. But I would have liked it if Hyatt had already done so.I don't regret the purchase at all. I will try to put these principles into practice as I analyze others' written speech.

I really liked this book and the examples in it. It was very helpful for learning how to detect and deal with deception. Some of the stories were hard to read. It did have a little highlighting in it (especially in earlier chapters) even though it was advertised as no markings inside. The main reason I gave it 4 stars was because the font was so small and very hard to read unless you had good lighting.

This is an outstanding book which is based upon the premise that statement analysis is an accurate verbal polygraph. I found it to be fascinating and reveals what we learn about detecting truth versus lies when we take the time to listen to others speak in their own words without inserting ourselves or our judgments into their stories.This is a tremendous book and while it does have typos, they should be attributed to the editors versus the author.

I learned a lot about deception by reading this book. It is far from the being well written, too many times I was left wondering about or wishing for better information about a name or case that was mentioned but not developed. I found multiple review errors in spelling or a wrong word used and my copy has a number or corrections in it that I penned in. The author has created a more curious individual in me and I am actively analyzing peoples statements or comments in a whole different manner thanks to what understanding I have over the use of words in a statement. I underlined many portions and will be rereading my copy again to try to hone it all in better. --Brad

If all you have is a written statement (police report, suicide note, threatening letter, affidavit) this book will explain how to extract more information out of the words the witness uses. If you have physical evidence and eyewitnesses you can still talk to then this book is still a useful supplement.

I received this book today. I am writing this review almost immediately - as Part 1. I will write Part 2 when I have finished reading the book. The reason I want to write Part 1 immediately is that I am astonished by what I have seen so far. Firstly, let me say that I have seen Peter Hyatt on You Tube and his analyses are fascinating and insightful. He also appears to be a very pleasant and intelligent and experienced man. His work is in the world of words. Words matter. Words have impact. Words mean specific things. Words can be carefully interpreted. Therefore, I was gobsmacked on picking up this book to see how dreadful the author’s spelling appears to be. On the back cover there is a howler of a spelling error - just 29 words in. Not only that, but the introduction contains several spelling errors (including the use of “who’s” instead of “whose” in two places). The author’s sentence construction is also often clumsy and jolting, and often contains errors of punctuation. It does not fill me with confidence that this book is going to be a good read. If someone’s work is centred on the importance of the words of others, it seems that it should be obligatory for them to take proper care over their own. It is disappointing to find that this is not the case here. The book is printed by Amazon and is clearly just run off from a text file with little formatting. This is not the author’s fault, but his casuality with spelling is. By the look of his photo on the front, this book was perhaps written a long time ago (there is no date as far as I can see) and it is to be hoped that in the meantime the author has upped his game with his own written word. If the material in this book is as good as other reviewers say it is, I would strongly encourage Mr. Hyatt to completely revise, re-edit and re-publish it, employing the luxury of a spelling/grammar-checker. I hope he reads this review!

This book is one of the most surprising I've come across. It's a true gem, as moving and thought-provoking as it is enlightening.Having been interested in Mr Hyatt's work for some time, I have observed him to be a person of fierce intellect, someone who says exactly what he means, a man not given to making simple mistakes.As a consequence I was really confused by the reviews of his book. So many mention typos and strange chapter headings...I decided to buy the book anyway, my faith in the abilities of the writer outweighing any concerns.I'm very glad that I did - this is a remarkable book. Please do not let the fact that it was transcribed by the glove puppet Sweep put you off; that is beyond the author's control and I can guarantee that the original transcript was immaculate. Sadly it is still the case that celebrity and money is everything and truly gifted writers are treated with abject disdain by publishers out to make a swift buck. Let's be real, it's something of a miracle that this book has made it to print at all, given the times in which we live but it really grinds my gears that it hasn't been given the respect it deserves.This book is a must for anyone interested in Criminology, Psychology and Statement Analysis. It's incredibly useful for anyone who wants to defend themselves, their families or their businesses from all aspects of deception. If you know Mr Hyatt's work you will see beyond the lazy errors of careless publishers and read the book as it was written - and you will be well rewarded for doing so. I pray his next book is treated with the respect his work deserves.

" Wise As a Serpent; Gentle As a Dove; Dealing With Deception. There are not enough review 'stars' by which I can judge this book by Mr Peter F. HYATT - Statement analyst. I have to give Peter 'Top Marks' without giving it a second thought. It is truly an amazing book to read; he is most certainly a ' Top Specialist' in his field, in dealing in deception cases. He has an amazing technique in analysing statements such as those written by suspects of deceit. suspected of deceitI first saw Peter Hyatt on 'YOUTUBE' when viewing a number of videos produced by Richard D. HALL relating to theon going investigation of the Madeleine McCann case. With regards to the statements that Kate and Gerry McCann made to the Police (which can be read in the pj McCann files ); Peter read through both statements and analysed them to the extent that Peter clearly showed to his audience that the McCann s were lying throughout each of their statements. It was not until I had listened to his explained reasoning for arriving at his analyses and great detective work, it became easier to follow and understand the reason for his findings. Viewing the YOUTUBE videos on the McCann case against Peter's analyses, I could only but agree that his findings were right.Peter's book is amazing to read, and I would certainly recommend it to law enforcement departments - to any solicitor, police officer and those who are interviewing suspects of committing crime, and even those in business who interview their employees suspected of deceit. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

So this book DOES contain some fascinating insights into how one can spot deception. There are some really great bits in it, and overall I enjoyed it, BUT:1. The book itself is incredibly amateur in its implementation. It really seems like someone typed it up on their laptop in word, didn't run a spell check and just uploaded it to Amazon.2. While the book contains a lot of bits of pieces which are interesting, mostily in the form of case studies, there's nowhere that it really gives an overall sense of the structure or methodology of statement analysis. You sort of pick it up from reading to some degree, but the author clearly has a lot of interesting insight to share and its disappointing this isn't presented in a more methodological way.

If you want to learn about entry level Statement Analysis, this is the book for you. I never read books, but I can honestly say, this is the first book I’ve had that’s kept my attention. I’m only on page 40 and I’ve learned a lot. Yes, there are spelling mistakes and typos, but in honesty it doesn’t detract from the book, its still enjoyable to read, the other criticism is that the chapters are short. I actually prefer this as it keeps things fresh, i.e. I’d rather have smaller examples and statements, that emphasize the teaching point, as apposed to large walls of text to read and analyse. Many of the negative reviews are politically motivated, Peter is right leaning so therefore ‘orange man bad, and Peter bad’. To summarise, you’ll learn more from the book than watching Peter’s YouTube appearances, that's if you’re newly learning. I’ll update this review once I’ve read the book.