Dead Reckoning

Dead Reckoning I: The African Criminal Investigation

By J. Chelal

Foreword by Dr. Francis Sang, Former Director of Criminal Investigation, Kenya

The first criminal investigation textbook written by an African practitioner, for the African investigator.

What happens when the modern police system fails to deliver justice, and communities turn to methods that have worked for centuries?

In Dead Reckoning I, retired senior intelligence and investigation officer J. Chelal draws on over thirty-five years of operational experience to write the book he wished had existed when he was a young constable. The result is a groundbreaking text that teaches modern investigative protocol, crime scene management, evidence handling, and the investigation of every major crime type, while doing something no other textbook does: taking seriously the African realities within which investigation actually occurs.

What This Book Covers

From the principles of investigation to the courtroom, this book walks the investigator through every stage of the criminal justice process. It includes detailed protocols for investigating homicide, robbery, traffic incidents, drug trafficking, cyber crime, community disputes, and gender-based violence. It explains the court process step by step. It confronts the contemporary challenges of political violence, artificial intelligence, and the exploitation of young Africans abroad, the neo-slavery of Kazi Majuu.

What Makes This Book Different

Most criminal investigation textbooks are written by Western academics for Western students, in contexts where forensic laboratories are available, witness protection is functional, and the community trusts the police. African investigators work in a different reality.

This book speaks directly to that reality. It acknowledges the resource constraints. It addresses the political pressures. It examines the spiritual dimensions of crime and justice that the formal system ignores. And it makes a compelling, evidence-based argument: that before colonialism introduced the modern police, Africa had its own effective systems of investigation, and those systems, the elder’s council, the investigative oath, the community truth-finding ritual, still function today. The investigator who ignores them is investigating with one eye closed.

Who Should Read This Book

• Police officers and criminal investigators seeking a practical handbook that addresses the realities of their work
• University students of criminology, criminal justice, law, and security studies
• Legal professionals who need to understand the investigative process behind the cases they prosecute or defend
• Anyone interested in African justice systems, indigenous knowledge, and the future of policing on the continent

About the Author

J. Chelal is a retired senior intelligence and investigation officer of the Kenya Police Service, with a career spanning more than thirty-five years, over fifteen of which were at mid-to-senior management level. He holds a Master’s degree in Criminology and has been trained by the Hong Kong Police Academy, Israeli intelligence, Interpol, and the FBI. He also holds a CMI Level 7 qualification in Strategic Management and Leadership from the United Kingdom. He has served as a part-time lecturer at multiple Kenyan universities, bringing operational experience into the classroom. He writes under the name J. Chelal.