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How to disappear completely and never be found
Doug Richmond has never changed identities. But as a journalist traveling the world, he has collected statements from dozens of people who have. What makes this book so incredible is that every scrap of information is based on case histories that are undeniably true.
How to Disappear Completely and Never be Found contains heavy-duty disappearing techniques for those with "a need to know." It tells how to plan a disappearance, how to arrange for new identification, how to cope in the first few days, how to find a job and establish credit.
You'll learn how to remain invisible from whoever might be after you: the police, private eyes, insurance companies, your spouse. You'll learn how to make it appear you've left the country when you haven't. You'll even learn how to commit "pseudocide": making people believe you are dead.
How to Disappear Completely and Never be Found contains heavy-duty disappearing techniques for those with "a need to know." It tells how to plan a disappearance, how to arrange for new identification, how to cope in the first few days, how to find a job and establish credit.
You'll learn how to remain invisible from whoever might be after you: the police, private eyes, insurance companies, your spouse. You'll learn how to make it appear you've left the country when you haven't. You'll even learn how to commit "pseudocide": making people believe you are dead.
107 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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December 26, 2011Unintentionally hilarious. Apparently, the primary reason people, by which I mean men, choose to disappear is because their wives don’t like their hobbies. In their new lives, these men can really start living—which mainly includes finding younger women, who I can only assume appreciate their stupid hobbies.
Would make an excellent musical, a la Reefer Madness.
Would make an excellent musical, a la Reefer Madness.
January 6, 2020
How to disappear completaly and never be found, the title says it all about this short but comprehensive book (it also inspired the name for the Radiohead song!). It's a humerous yet informative book on how to escape your current life and identity for a more desireable one. Mind you this book was written in 1986's America, so trying this today is more or less impossible. However, if you like me have ever day dreamed about packing it up and disappear without a trace to pick up a new and exciting life, this book is a fun way to indulge in that thought a bit (and also learn that you are very much not alone in thinking about it).
April 26, 2022
DNF. Comically sexist. Doug thinks most disappearances happen because men want to escape their marriages. LOL. This assumption is based on the statistic that most adult missing person reports are filed by wives whose husbands have gone missing. In the very first sentence, he says:
“To a man of a certain age, there’s a bit of magic in the very thought of cutting all ties, of getting away from it all, of changing names and jobs and women and living happily ever after in a more salubrious clime!�
The entire book he talks pretty much in this way, like only men ever daydream and decide to disappear. I don't care enough to argue his assumption, esp because this was first published in like 1985. In his defense, he was only able to interview middle-aged men who decided to disappear. Which could maybe mean women do the disappearing thing better?
It was interesting to learn about how some of these people managed to do it, and I imagine these men as those fathers and husbands who walked out of their families, you know, the ones we often hear about in literature (and irl, now I know what maybe happened to them). Ultimately, though, it's too boring to read the whole thing.
“To a man of a certain age, there’s a bit of magic in the very thought of cutting all ties, of getting away from it all, of changing names and jobs and women and living happily ever after in a more salubrious clime!�
The entire book he talks pretty much in this way, like only men ever daydream and decide to disappear. I don't care enough to argue his assumption, esp because this was first published in like 1985. In his defense, he was only able to interview middle-aged men who decided to disappear. Which could maybe mean women do the disappearing thing better?
It was interesting to learn about how some of these people managed to do it, and I imagine these men as those fathers and husbands who walked out of their families, you know, the ones we often hear about in literature (and irl, now I know what maybe happened to them). Ultimately, though, it's too boring to read the whole thing.
February 9, 2022
Informative but I think Doug Richmond hates women
April 24, 2012
Probably shouldn't admit that this book has probably fueled more daydreaming than anything else on my shelves.
April 19, 2023
Masturbatory daydream of a spiteful, selfish child with no sense of duty. Richmond interviews “disappearees� � men who suddenly leave their families without a trace. These men all seem to have the same story, ending with a gorgeous woman (if not a local girl half his age or a modern woman much more interested in fishing than marriage, then surely an extremely sentimental and lonely old flame who happens to live in the disappearee’s randomly chosen town) on his suntanned arm where his controlling, gullible wife once was.
Worthless set of teachings. Unrepentant praise of those who betray, lie and steal. Written poorly to boot: consistently incorrect use of idiom, capitalization and grammar errors, substandard syntax. The work of a middle aged man with a reading level just cresting that which is necessary for a dollar menu, few coping skills and a contemptible inability to shoulder his chosen burdens. Even the font choice reflected that of a tasteless, aging and undeservedly egotistical man.
Unfortunate.
Worthless set of teachings. Unrepentant praise of those who betray, lie and steal. Written poorly to boot: consistently incorrect use of idiom, capitalization and grammar errors, substandard syntax. The work of a middle aged man with a reading level just cresting that which is necessary for a dollar menu, few coping skills and a contemptible inability to shoulder his chosen burdens. Even the font choice reflected that of a tasteless, aging and undeservedly egotistical man.
Unfortunate.
July 17, 2016
funny book but it seriously describes steps people used to disappear and to change their name and location. family men with wife and kids are the most frequent disappears especially during mid life crisis.
February 15, 2023
it was a useful read if one day I need to randomly disappear😁
December 17, 2022
If you take this whole thing as a joke, then it's a pretty fun book
June 10, 2020
Not bad. Unsure if it's tongue in cheek or to be taken seriously. Completely disappearing has always appealed to me and certainly this book allows a certain fantasy to create itself. Not sure if all the advice is good but a decent, entertaining read.
August 31, 2019
Neat book and a short read. It's a pretty interesting idea, and at least in 1994, was a rather tractable problem. I'm curious how the rise of digital records would get in the way of attempting to obtain a fake identity. You can get through the book in one sitting, which is probably all of the time you'd want to dedicate to such a thing anyway --- the author clearly has some issues with women he needs to work out
September 4, 2012
1. I’d be so interested in reading an updated version. What’s harder with the internet vs. what’s easier.
2. I’m (re)watching The Shield season 7. Shane Vendrell needs this book something bad.
3. I think I’d be really, really good at this.
2. I’m (re)watching The Shield season 7. Shane Vendrell needs this book something bad.
3. I think I’d be really, really good at this.
May 8, 2013
Easy, quick read. Semi-interesting, mildly entertaining. Basically, if you're a woman, it is 10x harder to drop off the map. We'll see about that.
June 29, 2021
Amazing.
Can't wait to try this one day!
Can't wait to try this one day!
November 1, 2022
I didn’t realise how old this book was until it started being wildly sexist out of nowhere and I was like oh. Oh no
December 4, 2024
Great self help book
January 4, 2024
Won't be adjusting my review after I try it.
March 16, 2024
Pants. Absolute pants.
Okay, first of all, when I checked this book out from the library as research for a writing project, I thought to myself "Haha, lol, I wonder if I'm gonna get put on a list for this." Now, having read the book in its entirety, I have no such fears because its contents are such total and obvious bullshit. Any information that skews towards sounding real is obvious, and I'd say that amounts to a maximum of three pages. Not to mention, this book came out in 1986, so all the information about documentation was almost certainly outdated within five years of its initial publication. Everything else is a fake anecdote about some skeevy man who talked to the author in a bar about their "friend" who had to get away from his nagging wife and has now happily shacked up with a younger, sleeker model. Seriously, when I say every anecdote is a bonkers misogynistic story about some creep, I mean every. single. one.
Not just that, but in the informational passages, Dougie manages to project his own unflattering baggage. Here are a couple charming examples: "The not-so-amazing fact about teenage runaways is that they seem to find their way home as soon as the money runs out. If Mom & Dad forget to notify the authorities it could be a long time before Junior is stricken from the rolls of the missing." First of all, if Dougie had any interest in actual missing persons statistics, he would be aware that an extremely high number of teenage runaways are abused, trafficked, or cast-out queer kids running from potentially abusive partners or family members, but honestly, I don't even expect his pea-brained mid-century mind to grasp such nuances; what's more infuriating is the gross, pejorative language strewn here and all throughout this book.
See also, this chestnut: "The old gag about the fastest methods of news dissemination being telephone and tell-a-woman is as true today as when it was coined some hundred years or so ago."
And in the postscript, our man concludes, saying: "On rereading the manuscript I've come to the conclusion that perhaps it is the men who don't disappear who should be pitied. . . ." blah ze blah . . . "In this age of loud and vocal minorities, the disappearees in our midst—and they are legion!—who constitute a minority group in every sense of the word, are refreshing in that they aren't hollering for handouts, howling about discrimination, or complaining about their lack of opportunity. " Okay, first of all, how are you going to paint your obtuse bar buddies as a quantitative minority and say they're "legion" for a cheap and silly intimidation tactic in the same sentence? And to end your book on this note, extolling the virtues of the kind of coward who runs away from his family while also telling on yourself and spewing out the lowest common denominator right-wing talking points about how minorities are lazy and act out only in immorality, demonstrates that Dougie has the moral fiber of a car tire.
This book reads like a cross between a trashy informational VHS meant to turn a quick profit and a masturbatory male fantasy from a middle-aged dirtbag who deeply hates women.
Fuck this book.
Doug Richmond, if you haven't disappeared completely by now, I hope your wife took the manuscript to heart and left your ass thirty years ago.
Okay, first of all, when I checked this book out from the library as research for a writing project, I thought to myself "Haha, lol, I wonder if I'm gonna get put on a list for this." Now, having read the book in its entirety, I have no such fears because its contents are such total and obvious bullshit. Any information that skews towards sounding real is obvious, and I'd say that amounts to a maximum of three pages. Not to mention, this book came out in 1986, so all the information about documentation was almost certainly outdated within five years of its initial publication. Everything else is a fake anecdote about some skeevy man who talked to the author in a bar about their "friend" who had to get away from his nagging wife and has now happily shacked up with a younger, sleeker model. Seriously, when I say every anecdote is a bonkers misogynistic story about some creep, I mean every. single. one.
Not just that, but in the informational passages, Dougie manages to project his own unflattering baggage. Here are a couple charming examples: "The not-so-amazing fact about teenage runaways is that they seem to find their way home as soon as the money runs out. If Mom & Dad forget to notify the authorities it could be a long time before Junior is stricken from the rolls of the missing." First of all, if Dougie had any interest in actual missing persons statistics, he would be aware that an extremely high number of teenage runaways are abused, trafficked, or cast-out queer kids running from potentially abusive partners or family members, but honestly, I don't even expect his pea-brained mid-century mind to grasp such nuances; what's more infuriating is the gross, pejorative language strewn here and all throughout this book.
See also, this chestnut: "The old gag about the fastest methods of news dissemination being telephone and tell-a-woman is as true today as when it was coined some hundred years or so ago."
And in the postscript, our man concludes, saying: "On rereading the manuscript I've come to the conclusion that perhaps it is the men who don't disappear who should be pitied. . . ." blah ze blah . . . "In this age of loud and vocal minorities, the disappearees in our midst—and they are legion!—who constitute a minority group in every sense of the word, are refreshing in that they aren't hollering for handouts, howling about discrimination, or complaining about their lack of opportunity. " Okay, first of all, how are you going to paint your obtuse bar buddies as a quantitative minority and say they're "legion" for a cheap and silly intimidation tactic in the same sentence? And to end your book on this note, extolling the virtues of the kind of coward who runs away from his family while also telling on yourself and spewing out the lowest common denominator right-wing talking points about how minorities are lazy and act out only in immorality, demonstrates that Dougie has the moral fiber of a car tire.
This book reads like a cross between a trashy informational VHS meant to turn a quick profit and a masturbatory male fantasy from a middle-aged dirtbag who deeply hates women.
Fuck this book.
Doug Richmond, if you haven't disappeared completely by now, I hope your wife took the manuscript to heart and left your ass thirty years ago.
August 25, 2022
By and large, since I am not at the age which the author told, toward the start I felt misconstrued everything on the book. Indeed, there is a period in human life says the writer. The best wish of individuals turns into a departure, to continue their miserable existence in another urban areas, another air, wholy another atmosphere. Obviously, I won't begin my perspective with existencial crisis, other than I naturally suspect the referenced circumstance should be visible in individuals who are having middle age depression. Notwithstanding, is there any contrast between the wish of getaway in these middle-aged people and the longing to take off of our age which is in their twenties? What do we mean when we say as young people that I need to leave from this horrendous land and what do the tose people who have probably three children when they say İ want to runaway? That is the question; What do we mean?
The writer makes sense of the affordable instance of the very thing. Step by step instructions to get away, how would it be a good idea for us we manage police, expances of the taking off and so on simultaneously, he shows why certain individuals never get wanted by the police from the side of equity and in this manner we can consider about the cutting edge loneliness since certain individuals are very desolate and they don't have even family members who can cause the departure. In the book there is not a great reason of motivations to get away, but it explains that there is an exceptionally slight boundary between getting away in light of poverty and getting away for the sake of fun. Along these lines, it is so facile to collapse this boundary.
All things considered, we take off ordinary. We take off to our room, from the visual perceptions, words, quietness and even ourselves. This runaway and expect to be invicible became unknownly an everyday practice, I mean day to day custom in our lives. You can't see you are breathing until you understand it, isn't that so? It is exactly the same thing with out of control.
We coul have purchased ticket, left the farewell or apologize letters and situated in another city. Anyway, what is our family expected to do in this present circumstance? As per the author, for this situation the a large portion of spouses like to educate no one concerning their better half's getaway. Would it be advisable for her to say I was such a witch and presently, my charlatan is escape? No, the author says it is unreasonable. He implies at some point the appointed authorities we disdain can assist us with getting away.
To put it plainly, there are a lot of opportunities to take off. It is your own business to walk or not to stroll in these ways. Finding it is dependably questionable and sorting it out is in every case simple. Taking everything into account, you wish to escape when the responcibilty on your shoulders turned into the stone of Sisyphus which is you viewed silly as conveyed.
The writer makes sense of the affordable instance of the very thing. Step by step instructions to get away, how would it be a good idea for us we manage police, expances of the taking off and so on simultaneously, he shows why certain individuals never get wanted by the police from the side of equity and in this manner we can consider about the cutting edge loneliness since certain individuals are very desolate and they don't have even family members who can cause the departure. In the book there is not a great reason of motivations to get away, but it explains that there is an exceptionally slight boundary between getting away in light of poverty and getting away for the sake of fun. Along these lines, it is so facile to collapse this boundary.
All things considered, we take off ordinary. We take off to our room, from the visual perceptions, words, quietness and even ourselves. This runaway and expect to be invicible became unknownly an everyday practice, I mean day to day custom in our lives. You can't see you are breathing until you understand it, isn't that so? It is exactly the same thing with out of control.
We coul have purchased ticket, left the farewell or apologize letters and situated in another city. Anyway, what is our family expected to do in this present circumstance? As per the author, for this situation the a large portion of spouses like to educate no one concerning their better half's getaway. Would it be advisable for her to say I was such a witch and presently, my charlatan is escape? No, the author says it is unreasonable. He implies at some point the appointed authorities we disdain can assist us with getting away.
To put it plainly, there are a lot of opportunities to take off. It is your own business to walk or not to stroll in these ways. Finding it is dependably questionable and sorting it out is in every case simple. Taking everything into account, you wish to escape when the responcibilty on your shoulders turned into the stone of Sisyphus which is you viewed silly as conveyed.
January 22, 2018
A fun, outdated book that's pretty much useless in the digital age. A lot of the methods aren't brain surgery ether, it's basically an idiots guide to changing your identity. I personally wouldn't recommend this to anyone actually trying to start a new life, save your time and just run away and live in the woods or something. Richmond wrote this after interviewing a handful of "disappearees" and friends of "disappearees", and those seem like they'd be better reading material than his half-assed (but still kind of fun) research paper. Points taken off for the handful of low key racist & misogynist comments as well, yikes.
July 27, 2018
Het boek komt uit '86 en is daarmee gedateerd. Bepaalde verdwijntechnieken worden als 'makkelijk' gepresenteerd, dit zijn ze waarschijnlijk niet - denk hierbij aan het aanmeten van een nieuwe identiteit door gebruik te maken van een geboorteakte van een overledene. De schrijver stelt dat dit een koud kunstje is. Veel van de verhalen over verdwijnpogingen van personen die de schrijver heeft gesproken zijn redelijk spectaculair (daarmee ietwat ongeloofwaardig). De personen die de schrijver heeft gesproken lijken stuk voor stuk, na hun verdwijning, een fantastisch leven te leiden met een nieuwe, jonge vlam: opmerkelijk.
February 2, 2024
This book is basically nothing more than a curiosity in 2024. I expect that, even at the time it was first published, this book was of dubious usefulness. Half the stories read as if they were made up from whole cloth, and nearly all of them involve an annoying wife or ex-wife. Hmm�
Of the specific tactics recommended, I’d be surprised if even 10% of them are still applicable today. If nothing else, it was entertaining to see how seemingly easy it was to establish a fake identity back then.
Every now and then the author reveals bits of his personal politics and views, and they’re basically exactly what you’d expect given the subject material.
Of the specific tactics recommended, I’d be surprised if even 10% of them are still applicable today. If nothing else, it was entertaining to see how seemingly easy it was to establish a fake identity back then.
Every now and then the author reveals bits of his personal politics and views, and they’re basically exactly what you’d expect given the subject material.
February 23, 2025
It's schlocky, but a fun read. It's totally marketed to men in unhappy lives who probably found an ad for it in the back of a magazine their wife would disapprove of him reading. Not much of the advice is practical now, and the stories of people he supposedly interviewed are probably all nonsense. They're fun stories nonetheless.
Richmond acknowledges that disappearing is nothing more than a day dream for unhappy men--you may as well write a book called 'How to win the lottery' as your audience will be the same. However, as someone who is very interested in missing persons cases, this provides an informative look into an overlooked vector into the phenomenon.
Richmond acknowledges that disappearing is nothing more than a day dream for unhappy men--you may as well write a book called 'How to win the lottery' as your audience will be the same. However, as someone who is very interested in missing persons cases, this provides an informative look into an overlooked vector into the phenomenon.
August 24, 2022
Read as research for a college assignment. Completley out of date and totally american based. A "How to" book so clearly and simply written with good examples. Valuable to me for the psychology of a disappearee, and I was surprised how close it can be to a suicide. it more or less does what it says on the tin for the world in 1986
October 10, 2019
pretty interesting, surely outdated
September 10, 2020
I suspect this is kind of out of date (published in 1994 anyway).
June 25, 2022
Misogynistic and not anywhere near as interesting as it could have been
December 1, 2022
randy hated it for some reason, but idk, it wasn’t bad, it’s exactly what it said it was going to be about
May 2, 2023
I accidentally found about this book when I was looking for a play under the same name. It is entertaining but outright offensive with sexist and racist comments all over the place.
June 8, 2023
Sadly, quite outdated.
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