Adelchi Azzalini 
Statistical Inference Based on the likelihood [PDF ebook] 

The Likelihood plays a key role in both introducing general notions of statistical theory, and in developing specific methods. This book introduces likelihood-based statistical theory and related methods from a classical viewpoint, and demonstrates how the main body of currently used statistical techniques can be generated from a few key concepts, in particular the likelihood.Focusing on those methods, which have both a solid theoretical background and practical relevance, the author gives formal justification of the methods used and provides numerical examples with real data.