`This book is a must for those engaged in the field, providing a fully illustrated text on evaluation with numerous examples from the criminal justice system. Unusually, it offers something for the academic, practitioner and student alike. I found Pawson and Tilley's latest work on evaluation an enjoyable and informative read. For myself their `realistic evaluation' clarified and formalised a jumbled set of ideas I had already been developing.
The book provides a really useful insight into evaluation and will be of use and interest to most students on the perspectives on social research course. I recommend it highly but given the breadth of topics on the course it should be considered supplementary reading, rather than recommended.