Rating: Summary: Well chosen approach, great choice of interview subjects. Review: Connie Fletcher picked the right approach in tackling this subject; like Nicholas Pileggi's Wise Guy: Life in a Mafia Family, What Cops Know is told almost entirely in the subjects' own words, giving it an immediacy and buoyancy that can be mesmerizing. As one police officer stated, they have to develop a sense of humour about what they do. So their toughness, their panache for strange parlance and anecdotes, and their occasional bursts of machismo are delivered first-generation, Fletcher having the good sense to hold back on her editorial comments (something a writer like Colin Wilson overindulges in, making his books extremely moralistic) and just let her subjects tell their stories.The book started off slowly (the foreword explaining the approach, though useful, was cut-and-dry stuff, though certainly useful), but after getting through the first section, I plowed through 200 pages in one sitting. Some of the stories are plain hilarious; some disturbing and sombre; some made me downright sick to my stomach. The child-molestation section was harrowing; I'm usually very objective in my approach to reading, but the story of the mother "selling" her six-year-old child to strangers gut-punched me. Reading through this book, you begin to understand that the police have one of the most strenuous, underappreciated, and potentially corrupting jobs in Western society.
Rating: Summary: Easy reading true crime Review: I guess this is why they say First prize is a week in Chicago, Second prize is two weeks in Chicago. I like this book because it gives a large cross section of a large and rough city's Police department. While there a million yarns about the NYPD, I do believe that for a long period of time Chicago was A LOT rougher than NYC. I believe it has something to do with grinding urban poverty coupled with the influx of all the rural, tiny and poort elements of the American heartland (Tennessee and Kentucky, etc.) coming together. This has always been true of Chicago's history, even from its gangland days, I believe. The stories in the book run the gamut, from dead children, wild shootouts, and bizzare and sadistic murders. This book would send any surbanite fleeing back out of a City. Now in this supposedly 'reduced urban crime epoch' the young should read this book when they head to a hip urban campus and always keep in mind what most U.S. metro areas degenerate to, RATHER QUICKLY.
Rating: Summary: Not quite as good as Cops... Review: I read Mark Baker's "Cops" before I read Fletcher's book, which seemed, frankly, like an attempt to capitalize on Baker's idea. Nevertheless, it's a good book--primarily because the cops have good stories to tell. Baker's book covers more departments, while Fletcher's deals only with Chicago cops. To be fair, Fletcher's "Breaking and Entering" is a much more comprehensive and balanced book than this one. Still, it's a good read and if you're into law enforcement, it's a must-read.
Rating: Summary: From a Chicago Cop Review: I read this book before I became a Chicago cop. I felt like an outsider looking in and was curious as to how true the book was. I can tell you that this author knows what she is talking about. Working the streets of the southside, seeing murder, child abuse, prostitution, drugs, addicts etc... I can say without a doubt there is truth to the words in this book. There is truth to the after-effects cops can have from becoming part of this world, the drinking, the crying, the sleepless nights and the eventual hardening of the heart and beoming apathetic. This is a must read for anyone getting on the job. Read it and make sure you know what you are getting into. This is the best job in the world, but being prepared on how to deal with the pitfalls of it is essential.
Rating: Summary: From a Chicago Cop Review: I read this book before I became a Chicago cop. I felt like an outsider looking in and was curious as to how true the book was. I can tell you that this author knows what she is talking about. Working the streets of the southside, seeing murder, child abuse, prostitution, drugs, addicts etc... I can say without a doubt there is truth to the words in this book. There is truth to the after-effects cops can have from becoming part of this world, the drinking, the crying, the sleepless nights and the eventual hardening of the heart and beoming apathetic. This is a must read for anyone getting on the job. Read it and make sure you know what you are getting into. This is the best job in the world, but being prepared on how to deal with the pitfalls of it is essential.
Rating: Summary: Great book Review: I really think this book hits the reality of police work. I recommend this book for any cop or anyone interested in this line of work. If you work in a small town or a large city like Chicago, get this book. Great real life stories that you can relate with.
Rating: Summary: 330 pages of anecdotes Review: In my opinion, this book is next to useless. The book is suppodded to tell "what's it really like to be a cop", but it doesn't deliver. There are lots of stories told by Chicago cops, but these stories are really just anecdotes; the shortest are just one or two sentences long. You just can't tell much in two sentences. Another problem is, the book is arranged in topics. In practice this means that a cop after cop is telling you that "you don't forget your first corpse", and this goes on page after page, until the author moves on to another topic. It would be much more interesting, if there were about two or thee dozen stories in the book, each 5-10 pages long that you could read like a short story. But the way this book is written, it simply is not interesting to read, and you don't get much from reading it.
Rating: Summary: Not especially notable. Review: It's wonderful that this broad decided to work as a cop to lend her books authenticity, but I don't buy it.
Rating: Summary: It's real Review: No one knows the mean streets as well as the cops who patrol them every day. They are the ones who must face the dragon so that others can go about their lives with some sense of peace. In this wonderful book, the author has allowed the cops to tell it like it is. If you are offended, outraged and disgusted by what you read, it might be because the reality that cop's work in is far removed from your safe world. Cops face humanity beneath the veneer of societal graces, a place that is often horrific. This book tells it like it is.
Rating: Summary: Engrossing! Fantastic Police Book Review: The stories in this book are the REAL DEAL! Cops speak about their lives and their work with clarity and sincerity. The author has achieved a work of art and shown us lay men what life is like behind the badge.
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