Shards

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ٢٣ ديسمبر ٢٠١٣

Becoming a cop in the Maui (Hawaii) Police Department seemed to satisfy Moore's personality as an "adrenaline junkie" until the accessibility of drugs and an affair with a married colleague lured her into shattering abuse. At 23, adrift in seeking a career, athletic and determined, she found that training for the police force suited her, and once she became a rookie investigative cop, on the islands of Maui and Lanai, she grew obsessive, workaholic, and painstaking about trying to be fair and professional as a white, blond woman in a poor, heavily Filipino area that was riddled by drug use. A double teenaged suicide on Moore's watch devastated her, bringing up her own despair during her teenaged years in Albuquerque: her architect father had left the family for another woman when she was 14, and at 15 the author had tried to commit suicide after having an abortion. As an adult, and against her better instincts, Moore succumbed to the sexual comforts of a "broke" cop (that is, lazy and not fastidious), Keawe, who was married with three children; after another abortion the emotional pain began to gnaw at her. Once she was promoted to Vice and had the methamphetamine, aka ice, fall into her hand, she thought she had at last found "the answer to all problems." Accelerating use, debilitating health at the mercy of abusive dealers, burning up money, and unfurling a tangle of lies were the sad result. Moore's ability to dress herself down so nakedly is a brave feat and formidable to grasp.