Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Architecture blogger Manaugh (The BLDGBLOG Book) turns the building world inside out in this fascinating view of the modern city as seen through the eyes of a potential burglar. Noting that "burglary requires architecture," he shows how burglars deconstruct a seemingly stable building environment into a "Matrix space... of dissolving and pop-up entryways through to other worlds." They not only navigate air ducts, elevator shafts, and rooftops to gain access to interiors, but sometimes turn regulations intended to safeguard buildings into break-in blueprints. Observing that "cities get the type of crime their design calls for," Manaugh shows how Los Angeles's freeway system facilitates the "stop-and-rob" bank heists that made it "the bank robbery capital of the world" in the 1990s, and how, in the late '80s, one enterprising gang of crooks used the city's storm sewer system to tunnel into a bank vault and nab millions in loot. Manaugh supports his analyses of these weak spots in urban architecture with abundant insights and observations from law enforcement officers, security specialists, and self-identified burglars, and laces the text with thrilling accounts of audacious burglaries. Readers of this illuminating study will never look at the buildings and cities they live in the same way. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Manaugh (author of architecture blog BLDGBLOG) explores an interesting aspect of burglary: architecture. He believes that burglars-people who enter a private space illegally to take something-often have the best eyes and ideas when it comes to the architecture of the structures they are trying to enter. Some burglars claim to know how to enter simply by memorizing the fire code of the city and counting the windows. Manaugh makes a compelling case, and in the process persuades the reader to look at buildings in a new light. He talks to retired safe crackers, FBI agents, and police officers as he learns how burglars do everything from cutting holes in walls, climbing through air ducts, and even tunneling underground to break into their target. Law enforcement tries to add tools to increase the odds of capture and prevent burglary, but some of these tools, such as an infrared camera on the Los Angeles Police Department helicopter that patrols nightly, might be a little too Orwellian for some. VERDICT This fascinating look at how burglars analyze every nook and cranny of buildings will make readers see their homes anew. For fans of true crime, architecture, and surveillance.-Ryan Claringbole, Dept. of Public -Instruction, Madison, WI © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Manaugh (The BLDGBLOG Book, 2009) melds a romantic's taste for the furtive with the nitty-gritty of subverting architectural design in this fascinating, occasionally overfurnished examination of the art and science of burglary. One can't write a story of the built environment without telling the tale of those with designs on the designs: the often ingenious (but more often inept) criminals who want to break in. This rogue's gallery extends from ancient Rome to 19th-century architect-turned-heist artist George Leonidas Leslie to reformed practitioners of the present day. We also meet the security experts and law enforcement specialists who are tasked with anticipating and thwarting their incursions. Manaugh demonstrates that it is not so much what burglars steal that is interesting but how they move within an edifice or metropolis to do it. Having covered architecture and urban design for a decade, the author knows that where most see doors and windows, locks and alarms, burglars see the geometries of M.C. Escher. Buildings define the sorts of crime that can be attempted there, though it is not simply the architecture of an individual building, but the blueprints of whole cities. "Every city blooms with the kinds of crime most appropriate to its form," writes Manaugh, and burglars can intervene along unexpected paths, turning the city itself into a tool for breaking and entering. The author investigates the myth of the burglar, how novels and caper movies reveal our secret admiration for their craft, tools of the trade (exotic and prosaic), the vulnerabilities of the vault and cult of the lock, the false security of home security systems, how the Internet and social media have been a boon to crime, and, as counterpoint, how the easy pickings of a digital age find burglary in dramatic decline. Manaugh's authoritative writing wields a descriptive elegance, but while much in the book seems self-evident, he goes to great lengths to define it, and now and then, this laboring of the obvious results in unnecessary padding. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
