NYPD: Stories of Survival from the World's Toughest Beat

by Clint Willis (Editor)

Overview

New York has always inspired larger-than-life tales and great writing — but on the topic of cops and crime it provides more raw material than almost anywhere else. A long history of classic films, television hits, and of course, books, have turned the New York City Police Department into a symbol for the dark drama of urban police work. And the rich and colorful vein of literature which has grown up around this culture makes NYPD not only a gripping read but a literary tour de force. Adrenaline Books takes you inside this gritty, tough life of being a cop in New York City. In addition to works by best-selling authors such as Peter Maas and Tom Wolfe, the book will include selections that offer a broad and deep look at the department's many faces: Carsten Stroud tells what it's like to track down a killer; Richard Rosenthal offers a sense of the pressures and risks of going undercover; and Bill McCarthy and Mike Mallowe offer a guided tour of the city's dregs and the pressures of working with its hardest cases. Philip Gourevitch's account of a cop's dedicated efforts to resurrect a cold case; Marcus Laffey's already near-classic articles on life as a patrolman; and Peter Hellman's best-seller Chief, written with an NYPD chief of detectives help round out this fascinating view of the NYPD and the forces that have made it such a compelling subject for so many good writers.

" ... Try Adrenaline Books.... In three years, this 20-volume anthology series has earned a cult following." — ESPN the Magazine

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781560254126
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	10/28/2002
Series:	Adrenaline
Pages:	364
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Clint Willis has published more than forty books, including anthologies on topics such as adventure, politics, relgion, and war. His work has appeared in hundreds of publications, including Men's Journal, Outside, and the New York Times. His work has also been nominated for the American Society of Magazine Editors' National Magazine Award.

Editorial Reviews

Previously published essays on the NYPD explore the last 150 years of crime-fighting in a tough town. Adrenaline Books editor Willis (Kennedys, 2002, etc.) does it again, this time pulling together an admirable selection of works on policing that explore the ways New York cops cope with the demands of the beat, balancing coverage between upright guys and an impressive collection of cops on the take. An excerpt from Serpico appears almost as a matter of course, but Studs Terkel's interview (taken from Will the Circle Be Unbroken?, 2001) with a retired NYPD officer is a nice surprise, especially when the man details a rescue made while dangling by a rope from the top of the World Trade Center. A 1953 two-part story on John Cordes, the only two-time NYPD Medal of Honor winner, written by Joel Sayre for the New Yorker, leaps out as extraordinary writing about an almost unbelievably heroic character. Regular Joes are represented in an excerpt from Brooklyn Bounce (1994), in which former cop Joe Poss gives a matter-of-fact lesson on the difference between working in Manhattan and Brooklyn. And, of course, since corrupt cops make for good stories, you'll find plenty here. An excerpt from Mike McAlary's Buddy Boys (1987) illustrates how one cop went bent from a combination of a crooked partner and working the night of the 1977 blackout ("After I saw everybody in the community looting, I just didn't give a shit about what happened on the street anymore"). A twist is found in Vincent Cosgrove's exploration of the career of John Manca, in an excerpt from his biography, Tin for Sale (1991); Manca had chosen the police department over the family business, which just happened to be the Cosa Nostra.Meaty tales for the law-abiding, armchair adventurer.

Kirkus Reviews