True Crime: Allan Pinkerton's Thirty Years a Detective (1884)

> If you tell a farmer you’re collecting signatures to cap the salaries of government employees, and you’re a smooth-talking confidence man, the farmer will sign almost anything, even the deed to his own land. This kind of swindle is called “the boodle game”.

Government bad rich people good is an American belief that I will never understand.

For all the faults the FBI has I don't think Pinkerton's paid by Musk are a good alternative.

The Pinkertons are a fascinating period of history. "Detective agency" in the modern parlance doesn't really fit. They were a private army for the wealthy that at one time was larger than the US army.

One particularly famous incident (after the founder's death) was the Homestead strike [1]. Strike-breaking was very much in the Pinkerton's wheelhouse and it's a good example of what they were actually used for [2].

There doesn't seem to be a lot of fiction that features the Pinkertons prominently. One exception is the (excellent) HBO TV series Deadwood.

It's particularly apropos at this time because the lawless violence and organized labor suppression of the robber barons in the Pinkerton era is very much the future we are careening towards.

[1]: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/carnegi...

[2]: https://allthatsinteresting.com/pinkerton-detective-agency