The tools used by the author to criticize police work in several case studies are then used to construct a model for the professional interrogation of suspects that respects both the rights of citizens and the goals of law enforcement officers. Taking a linguistic point of view, the authors offers a practical explanation of how confessions work. He examines criminal confessions, the interrogations that elicit them, and the deceptive language that plays a role in the confession event. In addition, he presents transcripts from numerous interrogations and analyzes how language is used, how constitutional rights are protected, consistency and truthfulness, suggestibility, written confessions, and unvalidated confessions. The author concludes with explicit advice on how to conduct interrogations that will yield credible evidence and outlines some basic principles of interrogation, confession, and deceptive language. References and tables