Offers an insightful study of specialist detective units assigned to investigating drug offences, based on extensive fieldwork undertaken in two English police service areas, with in-depth analysis of the everyday realities of the 'war on drugs' and the underlying assumptions that operate beneath the presentational canopy of police organisations. This fine grained, witty and surprisingly mature work illustrates not only the world of detectives, but also the rich contours of the drug markets that they are tasked with policing. Ethnography rather than metrics enables us to unpack this intricate universe, and Bacon's study of specialist covert drug squads in 'Smallville' and 'Metropolis' allows us to understand the complexity of the relationship between enforcement and illicit markets.