A Cop's Life
True Stories from the Heart Behind the Badge
-
- £8.99
-
- £8.99
Publisher Description
After September 11, 2001 Las Vegas Police Sergeant Randy Sutton began soliciting writing from law enforcement officers-his goal being to bridge the gap between the police and those they serve, with a book that offers a broad and thoughtful look at the many facets of police life. Hundreds of active and former officers responded from all over the United States: men and women from big cities and small towns, some who had written professionally, but most for the first time. Sutton culled the selections into five categories: The Beat, Line of Duty, War Stories, Officer Down, and Ground Zero.
The result is True Blue, a collection of funny, charming, exciting, haunting stories about murder investigations, missing children, bungling burglars, car chases, lonely and desperate shut-ins, routine traffic stops, officers killed in the line of duty, and the life-changing events of September 11. Here, officers reveal their emotions-fear and pride, joy and disgust, shame and love-as they recount the defining moments of their careers. In these stories, the heart and soul behind the badge shines through in unexpected ways. True Blue will change the way we think about the deeply human realm of police service.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Veteran Las Vegas police sergeant Sutton, who edited the acclaimed True Blue, brilliantly evokes the tormented inner life of the average cop with 20 short but powerful autobiographical sketches. With a novelist's skill, Sutton makes fresh situations that could, in lesser hands, come across as hoary clich s. The broken lives Sutton encounters the suicides, gangbangers, the mentally ill, the burnt-out officers tempted to eat their guns and the innocents in the wrong place at the wrong time come vividly to life. The memorable figures include a boy who attempts to protect the grandmother who cares for him from violent punks, and a young girl whose trust in the cynical Sutton helps him gain perspective on his job. The author doesn't minimize the temptation to respond with force that is often the officer's instinctive response to mindless cruelty, and unflinchingly portrays the stresses that plague him when his best efforts to protect or save lives fell short stresses that led him to consider ending his life. Some may find the closing section, a fictional Christmas parable, slightly sappy, but that doesn't diminish Sutton's achievement in enabling the reader to pound the pavement in his shoes.
