Rating: 
Summary: Not so good.
Review: Hate to say this, but this book promises far more than it can deliver. The book cites a lot of conventional wisdom along with a few specious claims (such as, you can tell someone desires to leave a conversation by the direction his feet are pointing, particularly towards an exit).
I couldn't glean very much useful information from the book, because most of it would not stand up to the scrunity of repeated use, different people or various circumstances.
I would say, at best, it's a good fluff piece about this topic.
A better book is Paul Ekman's "Telling Lies". It is based on more sound, consistent, and standardized research and it is better written.
Rating: 
Summary: You have to start with yourself..........
Review: I did not know what to expect from reading "The Truth About Lying" but after reading it I now know you have to start with yourself. I read a few of the reviews that read "Most of what is in this book is common sense" yes and no. If you are not aware of the mechanics to spot deception then you can not use common sense to resolve deception. I am glad I purchased and read "The Truth About Lying".
Rating: 
Summary: Great for Everyday use.
Review: I found this book excellent. He has written the book in a very structured and easily understandable way. The 3 basic parts to the book are:- Verbal Communication - NonverbalCommunication - Response Behavior The book follows a good flow, and information is easy to remember as well as easy to find in the text again. This is not to say that this is a simple and low-detailed book. He goes into a good deal of depth. If you want the real deal though, go for CIA Interrogation. This is perfect for your everyday life.
Rating: 
Summary: Isn't this just common sense?
Review: I read this book hoping to find telltale ways to spot liars. Call me optimistic. However, what I ended up reading was common sense pointers to find out when someone is under stress. If you want to find out truly what people do when they lie, do not read this book. It only mentions that each person has specific behaviors that they exhibit when lying. The author constantly cites exceptions to what he says and warns people not to make rash judgments. I do not feel that I learned anything new from this book. The main point here is that if you think someone is lying, then dig a little deeper into that subject area to try and uncover the truth. On the upside, the book was easy to read and was not necessarily boring. But I would look elsewhere to find a more concrete book about what people do when telling lies.
Rating:
Summary: Isn't this just common sense?
Review: I read this book hoping to find telltale ways to spot liars. Call me optimistic. However, what I ended up reading was common sense pointers to find out when someone is under stress. If you want to find out truly what people do when they lie, do not read this book. It only mentions that each person has specific behaviors that they exhibit when lying. The author constantly cites exceptions to what he says and warns people not to make rash judgments. I do not feel that I learned anything new from this book. The main point here is that if you think someone is lying, then dig a little deeper into that subject area to try and uncover the truth. On the upside, the book was easy to read and was not necessarily boring. But I would look elsewhere to find a more concrete book about what people do when telling lies.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent guide on lying
Review: I recently read Never Be Lied To Again, by David J. Lieberman, and I like this book better. He has more information useful to me as a person in sales. I've been recommending this to all my friends in sales.
Rating:
Summary: I agree downright commonsense
Review: Most of this book about the first 60 pages are filled with water just to make it thick & boost the price to make it 'saleable.' It lacks in explanation, no exercises to test empiricism and most of them are common sense possessed by all people. The loud volume of voice is generally an indication of anger. Gee really! The book is filed with these kind of obvious observations. Not only this, after reading the book your skill would basically still be the same and it sort opens up a monopoly to find more books about the author/ videos and after years and years of studying to be proficient. The book is far from being in par with the legendary book on handwriting analysis by Andrea McNichol which also incorporates lots of common sense but atleast the author makes that apparent! But this author sadly delivers his common sense observations in such a serious manner that he is giving away valuable information. He also covers his grounds by repeatedly talking abt clusters, subtleties and fairly giving the impression that it is not such an easy thing to master so even if his readers fails to test it out in real life he is not to be blamed. Okay for a 9 year old, buy it cheap at auction or really low price for used or you wont get your money's worth and be thoroughly disappointed like me. It was my mistake to put credibility in it based on the sparkling phrase/concept of "law enforcement training." Someone please do recommenmd me an insightful book on lie detection that one can actually use in real life.
Rating:
Summary: closer to the truth than other pop psychology books
Review: Of the four books I read recently about reading people and/or uncovering deception, this is probably the best, mainly because it doesn't fall into the trap of assigning specific behaviors as indicators of certain traits. The author is an expert in interrogation, and it shows-- the book is grounded in solid psychological fact, and is one that is certain to improve the people-reading skills of most readers. He also dispels some myths, such as those promoted by proponents of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. About the only complaint I have is his claim that the book cannot be used by unscrupulous people to deceive others- not all the best actors gravitate toward Broadway or Hollywood. Still, out of the four books I read, this is the one that is most worth your time and money.
Rating:
Summary: Great Practical Advice
Review: Stan Walters may not be the most polished writer, but he has written a clear and interesting practical manual for detecting deception. Walters persuasively argues that there are no simple indicators of deception (like looking down and to the left). Rather in order to detect deception, we must meticulously and repeatedly compare a person's normal behavior with their behavior in response to a given issue, looking for the stress responses that may signal deception. (He discusses the details of those stress responses at great length.) Reading this book almost made me wish for a habitual liar in my life so that I could test and practice the myriad of techniques for detecting deception myself!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent guide on the motivation and behavior of liars
Review: The Truth About Lying is a short, easy-to-read, 60,000-word layman's guide to lying written by Stan B. Walters. Mr. Walters's company provides interview and interrogation services and training to business, industry, and law enforcement agencies in the U.S. He is an adjunct instructor at Eastern Kentucky University College of Law Enforcement and an adjunct instructor for the Department of Defense Polygraph Association. In short, he is an expert on lying, and it shows in his book. There is a very good index in the book, a truly excellent bibliography (should you care to pursue the topic of lying further), and the artistic layout and paper quality are absolutely gorgeous, making the book a pleasure to look at and hold. The topics listed in the table of contents include: What's Behind a Lie, Guidelines and Principles, Verbal Communication, Nonverbal Communication, Response Behavior, Using What You Know. I would highly recommend this book to just about anyone, because there is probably not a person alive who has never experienced the negative consequences of lies. As Mr. Walters states: "Can you afford to make a critical decision, or even a simple day-to-day decision, only to find out later that it was based on false or misleading information?" In addition to providing very valuable information on how to read the body language of liars, Mr. Walters puts lies in a social context. He states that it is important to figure out both when we are being lied to, and if there is anything in our own behavior that might encourage others to lie to us. For example, many of us are afraid to hear the truth and would "much rather hear subtle distortions of the truth rather than...cold, hard reality." In this regard, I find the section on relationships particularly insightful. The people we deal with in daily life are discussed in terms of four general categories, "intimate, personal, social and public." Each group operates by a different set of rules which leads to different expectations, types of lies, and degree of seriousness of the effects of lies we encounter, depending on how emotionally close we are to a given person. As well as recommending this book to a general audience, I also strongly recommend it to fiction writers. All types of characters, including heroes, villains, allies and antagonists, may have a reason to lie in a given story, whether it is drama or comedy, and it is important to understand the how and why of their lies (what goals and motivations bring them about). Mr. Walters states, "By being deceptive, a person accomplishes some goal, whether it be to gain a personal benefit, to avoid some form of unattractive consequence, or to protect himself or someone else in a situation that appears to be unpredictable....The more that a person perceives is at stake, the more pressure he may feel to choose to be deceitful." Since the hallmark of good fiction is for the protagonist to have a lot at stake, it behooves writers to be well-versed in the subject of high-stakes lying. This book provides that information. You may wonder with all this praise I am heaping on Mr. Walters why I did not give his book a solid 5-star rating. I did not because, unfortunately, though the author is obviously very knowledgeable, his writing could benefit from the aid of a good editor. He is extremely redundant, with the same ideas and phrases repeated over and over throughout the book, sometimes intentionally ("as I said before") and sometimes not. If you can get past this problem, the information itself is very useful.
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