A look inside the world of a police officer
When I saw this book I bought it because it looked interesting and when I got around to reading it I discovered it to be really interesting, though we must always remember that it is written from one point of view, and that is from that of the Chicago Police. Even then I found it remarkably enlightening to learn about law enforcement from the side of the enforcers and the dangers that they always seem to face in their job. Okay, the book is focused only on the Chicago Police Department, but it is most likely because the author had access to a number of Chicago cops who were willing to talk to her, noting that what she says at the beginning is that the police tend not to speak to outsiders about the gritty nature of their work.
The reason that I decided to write a commentary on this book was, not just because I have read it and that it had not yet been put on my list, but because after finishing a Conan story there was a passage in that particular story that triggered my memories of this book, and the since passage was of some importance that I believe I need to quote it for you to understand where I am coming from.
'You dare ask...' she begun angrily, when she felt herself snatched off her feet and crushed to the hetman's muscular breast. She fought him fiercely, with all the supple strength of her magnificent youth, but he only laughed exuberantly, drunk with the possession of this splendid creature withering in his arms.
He crushed her struggles easily, drinking the nectar of her lips with all the unrestrained passion that was his, until the arms that strained against them melted and twinged convulsively about his massive neck. Then he looked down into the clear eyes, and said 'why should not a chief of the Free People be preferable to a city-bred dog of Turan?'
She shook back her tawny locks, still tingling in every nerve from the fire of his kisses. She did not loosen her arms from around his neck.
What is happening here is that Conan is forcing himself onto a woman that is not interested in him, but by forcing himself onto her she stops resisting. While the Conan stories are set in an ancient pre-historic world, this is still what we would call rape. One may ask what does the above passage have to do with this book, and my response is 'quite a lot'. There is a chapter in this book on rape and it said a number of things that I already know about the subject (since I did study it in criminal law, and also had exposure to it when I worked in a criminal law firm). One of the ideas is that most of the rapes are done by people that the woman knows, and one of the reasons is that the rapist believes that by forcing himself upon her the woman will fall in love with him. Usually this is the result of unrequited love where the woman is rejecting the male and the male simply does not want to take no for an answer. In these cases the male believes that he is the best person for this woman and is convinced that the woman does not realise it at that time, but if he continues to pursue her and force himself onto her then she will 'wake up' and realise that he is the only guy for her. This may be true, but it does not mean that the male should try to prove it to her by physically forcing himself onto her. Sometimes in situations like these (and I know how hard it can be) the best thing to do is to simply walk away. Rape is rape, and it is a very serious crime.
Other reasons for rape are a desire to exert power over another person. We believe that we are civilised but in reality we are not. In older times, when an enemy city was sacked, and we have all heard of the concept of 'Rape and Pillage', the invading army would sack the city, and a part of sacking the city would involve raping the woman. They did not do it mainly for pleasure, but because they were the victors and to the victors go the spoils. In those days women were little more than property, and to an enemy army, they were the spoils, and raping the women was their way of saying 'you are now mine to do with you what I please'.
Enough on rape, because it is a very disturbing subject that many of us wish to put at the back of our minds, but this is also a very disturbing book, learning about all of the barbarity that lurks in the streets of Chicago. Okay, I am not one to say and believe that the police are the pinnacle of virtue, but as with everybody else, they have a right to tell their stories, and in many cases it seems that the only people who do get to tell their stories are the criminals. Being a police officer is a very dangerous job, as we learn from this book, especially in America where people are allowed to carry guns. The police do not know whether the next person whom they pull over will be the last, or whether when they knock on a door, the answer will be a shotgun blast. Much is made of the excitement of being a police officer in Hollywood movies, but this book strips the excitement away to reveal the dangers that they face.
Another interesting aspect of this book is the section on organised crime. There is a lot of discussion about bodies in the boot of a car. They suggest that the reason that bodies are dumped in car boots and the car then dumped is that there is no crime scene. Well, there is, it is just they do not know where it is located. Smart criminals (namely those who are in the upper echelons of organised crime, and those that have been doing it a long time and have survived) know how to cover their tracks. They don't leave the body where they killed it, they move it because a lot of forensic evidence is then lost. Even better, they torch the car because then it makes identification of the body so much more difficult.
This was actually a really good book, though it was also very disturbing, learning about the underworld through the eyes of the police. In a way I am really glad that I straightened my life out because in the end I really did not want to be apart of that violent and untrustworthy world that is fuelled by greed, fear, and the lack of respect for human life. Of course, one of the reasons that the criminal underworld is so violent is because there is no legal recourse against a dispute, and the people that they are dealing with do not take defeat lightly. When beaten, they do not run away with their tails between their legs, rather they bide their time and then get even.
