Lockpicking Books

I've been browsing some of the lockpicking books available on Amazon and just threw a couple in my wishlist.  I may try to see if my county library has them before ordering them new.  If anyone has read any of these titles (or related others), I'd love to hear whether you'd recommend them or not.  My curiosity is mostly writing-related (hey, if you've got characters who are supposed to know how to pick locks, the author should probably have a clue, right?), but it seems applicable to this blog.  After all, the more you know about how something works (or the methods thieves use, for example) the better you can design your home's security system to fight it.

Here are the titles I was looking at that have good reviews:

Opening Combination Padlocks : No Tools, No Problem
How To Open Locks With Improvised Tools: Practical, Non-Destructive Ways Of Getting Back Into Just About Everything When You Lose Your Keys
Modern High-Security Locks : How To Open Them
Visual Guide to Lock Picking

A couple of the books on lockpicking are from the early 90's/late 80's so I'm a little concerned that they may be outdated.  I'm sure some of the stuff continues to be correct--after all most people are probably still using locks from the 80's or 90's on their front doors, but what do you guys think?

I'm leaning toward the Visual Guide to Lockpicking just because it sounds like it would have a lot of helpful diagrams and what not.  Whichever I go with, I'll come back and do a full review and maybe post some information on the blog.

Comments

[Andrew]

You've missed 'The Bible'--it's the best, in fact it's the ONLY 'good' book publicly available that gives accurate information on bypass:

Locks, Safes, and Security
by Marc Weber Tobias

It's not cheap at $220, but for 1400 pages of top quality information contained in two 700 page volumes, you really shouldn't be surprised.

I'd highly suggest you check it out and review it; I have a copy if you'd like me to look up something specific for you. If you don't want to spend the money, I know for a fact that copies are available through inter-library loan; I know several people who have gotten it that way, just talk to your local library.

Cheers!
Andrew