Dr Eckman may disappoint his readers by not giving them what they want: A simple protocol for determining whether or not someone is lying. There is a simple reason: There isn't one.

Other books will defraud the reader by giving them techniques that in reality don't work. Dr Eckman pounds in one central point - that there is no one single way to detect dishonesty. He calls any belief to the contrary "the Brokaw Hazard," named after Tom Brokaw, who believes that circumlocution is the omnipresent sentinel of a lie. He also develops the concept of the "Othello Error," that cautions the reader against actually causing lie signals by accident (named after the literary Othello, who assumed that his wife's sobbing was for her lover, but in reality she was sobbing because of her husband's rage over the incorrectly presumed affair.). He gives many tips, including a checklist in an appendix that might help the reader to detect lies, but most of the material is embedded deep within the text. He helps the reader to develop a dynamic approach to detecting lies; approaches that are developed as detection begins. He exhorts the reader to use NUMEROUS well-defined clues to develop the case for the conclusion that someone is lying.

The biggest flaw in the book is on its cover. The cover suggests that this is a practical book. It is more of a research paper. This is what makes it reliable - the fact that such a complete study is contained within. But the average reader will look for a standard protocol for detecting lies - but the Brokaw Hazard tells us there is none.