by Elaine Arthur

Created on: May 21, 2009

Gavin De Becker's bestselling book The Gift of Fear was first published in 1997, and quickly set a new standard for the way we discuss and analyze crime. The book covers a wide range on the subject - everything from how we protect ourselves (and why we sometimes fail to do so), what to look for in encounters with new people, to how the media distort and mislead us in their reporting of crime. Everyone can learn something from reading this book.

As the head of an internationally known security firm, De Becker has worked closely with government agencies, celebrities and ordinary people who are seeking to learn more about how to protect themselves and their families. It is clear in this book that anyone has the potential to be a crime victim, because crime has an endless variety of shapes and patterns.

Like all chapters, the first one starts off with a dramatic scenario. A woman is raped by a stranger in her apartment building. Each minute detail of the encounter provides "survival signals" - things we miss because we hesitate to seem overly suspicious or paranoid. De Becker emphasizes the importance of intuition, and how it can be used to avoid dangerous situations in the beginning, or escape from them later on.

Crime can be the violent-stranger-in-the-stairwell kind, or it can be the friendly-job-seeker-who-turns-into-a-stalker variety. De Becker's anecdotes will equip the reader to observe and look for patterns. The person who makes threats disguised as "jokes"; who works to control the conversation; who will not take no for an answer ... De Becker provides tips for dealing with these all-too-common pests in the gardens of our lives.

"Engage and enrage" is one especially useful concept described in these pages. De Becker provides a detailed chronology of a husband and wife who own a small company. They are approached by someone who wants to become a business partner. In typical fashion, the man and woman adopt a receptive attitude, since being open-minded is a key ingredient in successful business relationships. But the newcomer is extremely pushy, and the couple find themselves pushed ever farther into a defensive and adversarial position each time they respond to one of his aggressive phone calls. De Becker's detailed approach is logical and reassuring. Perhaps the key rule he stresses is to never ignore a situation that feels "wrong." Enlist the aid of professionals who are trained to deal with bothersome characters - detach and remove yourself from the front lines.

Women of all ages will appreciate De Becker's insights into the dilemma of "letting him down easy." As he explains, men are nice when they pursue, and woman are nice when they reject. It is part of the social conditioning most of us go through in our teenage years. Popular music and movies do a great deal to perpetuate this pattern. However, women often find themselves unable to convince an ardent man that they are truly not interested in a relationship, and this misunderstanding often leads to unpleasant confrontations. De Becker provides a clip-and-save paragraph with the precise wording that a woman should use to make her lack of interest clear. This is followed, again, by the "engage and enrage" lesson, which encourages a woman to be firm, assertive and unambiguous in saying no.

Crime is so sensationalized in the news media, the average person may feel compelled to exaggerate the dangers around us. De Becker helps us see the difference between the bizarre and exotic stories in the news and the everyday, more likely incidents that we should focus on. The Gift of Fear is an empowering and enlightening guide to a topic that is relevant to everyone.

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