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The most comprehensive manual on the subject of Executive Protection. Over the past few years, its author, Peter Consterdine has run EP operations in such diverse geographies as Moscow, Beirut, Madrid, Kazakhstan, London, St. Petersburg, Algeria and the Far East. As the definitive training manual, The Modern Bodyguard covers all you need to know about the work of bodyguarding. Revised and enlarged in 1997, it is some 332 pages, with over 100 photographs and over 70 illustrations covering the most up-to-date techniques.
Peter adopts a ‘real world’ approach to how the many drills and procedures should be applied in practice not just in theory. Peter says: In civilian EP work, our employers are discretionary purchasers and their consent to all we do is absolute. At times in this book, I’ve probably been provocative in my approach to certain subjects, but often I’m appalled at the text book approach to the reality of situations.

Even in a book of this size, it has not been possible to go into great depth on many of the subjects, but that is how it should be. There is a point reached where you simply can’t learn it from a book. Theory, concepts and procedural do’s and don’ts are fine, but training is doing and you’ve got to practice drills and procedures.

You’ve got to drive, shoot and carry out foot formations and understand the problems when on the ground, of operating as part of a CP team in whatever role you may occupy. What I’ve attempted to do, in those areas where it isn’t possible to look at all the subjects in detail, is to put in the subject headings and leave it to the reader to further his or her own studies around those subjects that interest them the most.

Protecting the lives of people of note can never be an exact science. There are too many incalculable factors, too many unknown dangers for protection to be guaranteed. So this book is intended as advice, not as a set of obligatory instructions or directions, because it is realised that the best that can be striven for is a routine and systems that are designed to combat the most obvious risks and endeavour to be ready for the less obvious ones. The only permitted variables in the degrees of protection, as you will read, are in proportion to the threat, but the operative’s effort must at all times be absolute or any measures will be in vain. In other words, the cover provided for a VIP may sometimes only be minimal, but our efforts to provide that cover are always 100%.

The real world of Executive Protection is not that we read about where the so called operatives carry every conceivable weapon on their person, even down to a pair of handcuffs, nor is it about shooting, stabbings and leaving bodies strewn over the landscape, as some of our more extreme colleagues in the industry would have you believe. It is about detailed planning, correct determination and use of resources, protocol and being able to be indistinguishable from any other Board member you are tasked to look after.Don’t be sucked into believing the gung ho brigade it doesn’t happen like that, which is why I wrote this book to set the record straight as to just what a professional Close Protection operative should know.