Book Review: Brodie, T. G. (2005). Bombs and Bombings: A Handbook to Protection, Security, Detection, Disposal and Investigation for Industry, Police and Fire Departments (3rd ed.). Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas. pp. xi, 316

• DOI: 10.1177/0734016808314556
• Date: 01 March 2008
• Author: William L. Dunn
• Published date: 01 March 2008
• Subject Matter: Articles

as rational actors—an assumption about the causes of sex crime that neglects other causal

factors like the disinhibition of alcohol and drug use or of assault as an expression of impul-

sive rage rather than a planned event. In addition, Carney takes little account of offenders

with mixed offending patterns, despite empirical research to show that sex offenders may be

more like other criminal offenders rather than uniquely sexual in their criminality (his men-

tion of opportunistic rapists, p. 190, could have addressed this but is unsatisfactory in the

ways described above. For some of the best available research on sexual offending in the

United States, which would provide a good balance to Carney’s text, visit the Association

for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, http://www.atsa.com, and the Center for Sex Offender

Management, http://www.csom.org)

Despite its limitations, Carney’s book provides a good overview and should be read by

those likely to be first officers on the scene, as well as by managers.

Chrysanthi Leon

University of Delaware

Reference

Sample, L., & Bray, T. (2003). Are sex offenders dangerous? Criminology and Public Policy, 3, 59-82.

Brodie, T. G. (2005). Bombs and Bombings: A Handbook to

Protection, Security, Detection, Disposal and Investigation

for Industry, Police and Fire Departments (3rd ed.).

Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas. pp. xi, 316.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016808314556

This book is a practical manual, not a theoretical treatise. Hence, it will be useful to those

brave men and women who participate in activities in which explosives might be encountered.

The author is an experienced bomb specialist who has set out to provide information that

might be of use to others who may have to deal with bombs and bombings. To this end, the

book is very useful. This third edition is extremely timely because of the proliferation of the

use of conventional explosives in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by terrorist groups.

The author is a retired Police Captain who has had an illustrious career that included 24

years on the bomb squad. There is little doubt that Captain Brodie is an expert in the field

of bombs and bombings and that this book provides much useful, relevant, and practical

information concerning conventional (i.e., chemical) explosives. The book mentions steam,

nuclear (fission and fusion), and electrical explosives, but only in passing. That the book is

not encyclopedic in covering all types of explosives is a fact but not a shortcoming. It is

quite reasonable to focus in depth on an aspect of a subject, and this the author does.

The book that Captain Brodie has enhanced to its third edition occupies an important

subspace in the general volume of information about explosives. It is to be contrasted with

130 Criminal Justice Review