Bad Cop

Read Bad Cop Storyline:

In 2001, Paul Bacon was a typical young guy in New York: overeducated, liberal, hip, a little aimless. But when 9/11 came, he was galvanized into action. Feeling that he had to do something to help his fellow man, he raced to Ground Zero, where he stood around for several days before finally realizing that he had no skills that were of any use in a crisis. So he applied to the fire department-and was summarily rejected; he was too old, they said, and he couldn't do any pull-ups. So he decided to take what was available to him: He joined the NYPD.Bad Cop is Bacon's hilarious and thoughtful memoir of his three years among New York's Finest. Beginning with his tenure in the police academy (where he's mostly interested in pursuing the lovely cadet Clarabel - until he finds a surprising new love in the form of his service .357), it follows him through a reluctant apprenticeship and out onto the streets, where the sensitive former graphic designer is transformed into a rough-and-tumble Harlem beat cop. Brimming with great set pieces and amazing characters, this is both a love letter and a send-up of the squad that keeps New York safe - sometimes.From Publishers WeeklyFor almost four years after the 2001 World Trade Center tragedy, freelance writer Bacon chronicles his quest in this humorous book to do his best as a New York City cop, yet the arduous task of law enforcement was much more than he imagined. Self-described as a hip, overeducated liberal, the author had worked at home for five years for an online company before joining the NYPD force, but the collective experience of the police academy and being a Harlem beat cop eventually wears him down emotionally. Everything gnaws at his resolve, including the grueling cycle of drug collars, the rousting of crooks and a crush on a disinterested Latina police officer. When Bacon later unravels during a security detail in a manic Jerry Lewis–style comic scene, he writes: I was no good as a bad cop and not bad enough to be a good cop. I'm lucky I made it out alive. Bacon, now a scuba instructor on Maui, provides readers with a madcap yarn of handcuffs, broken hearts and the thin blue line. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistThis memoir by a man who should never have strapped on a police holster has a wonderful narrative arc, spanning Bacon’s pre-NYPD series of menial jobs, a police career that lasted from 2001 to the 2004 Republican National Convention and that left him confused and exhausted, and a neat resolution as a life-saving scuba instructor in Maui. The events of September 11 (Bacon witnessed the collapse of the South Tower) propelled him from a desk job to policing in the worst part of Harlem. Feelings of civic pride and duty led Bacon to the streets, but what resulted was a series of humiliations and misadventures that he renders in excruciatingly comic detail. Part of the comedy and truth of this memoir is the way it counters expectations: the hero never does catch on with or win over either cops or perps, or he never becomes good at his job. A vivid and insightful saga of the wrong man in the wrong job at the wrong time. --Connie Fletcher