A Couple of Cops: On the Street, in the Crime Lab

A portrait of two crimefighters--street-wise veteran John Cuomo and Al Della Penna, a young college graduate--and their adventures and misadventures shares insights into the law enforcement profession. 25,000 first printing.

This is the story of the author's two cousins: Al Della Penna, detective sergeant and chief firearms examiner with Long Island's Suffolk County Police Department, and John Cuomo, detective second grade, NYPD. Their stories are related in the first person, with author narratives interspersed throughout. Della Penna, the suburban senior crime scene investigator, tells how evidence is collected and why he is wary of the press ("They want news. I want evidence"). He takes us to the scene of the murder of a middle-class housewife, who was found naked, strangled and stabbed, and describes how he nabbed a local punk for the vicious murder. He takes us on the case that became the basis for The Amityville Horror-a boy's murder of his parents and his four siblings-and why some questions regarding it are still unanswered. Detective Cuomo, a natural-born storyteller, regales us with tales of life as a Big Apple cop. Starting out in 1954 in Spanish Harlem's 25th Precinct, he was soon working narcotics in the Bronx, earning his detective's shield. He relates how his investigation of a homicide of an insurance broker with mob ties set him up for an indictment for bribery, which was eventually dropped. As graphic as it is interesting, Cuomo's (Trial by Water) portrait of two very different cousin cops makes exciting reading. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Novelist Cuomo found inspiration close to home for this rambling and episodic nonfiction narrative. His cousins, who became cops, talk about their careers, one on the mean streets of Harlem and the Bronx, the other as a firearms specialist in a crime lab in suburban Long Island. A Couple of Cops is surprising and engaging. It offers little in the way of excitement, danger, or derring-do. The only shots fired are for ballistics tests, and both cops remind the reader that solving crimes is more about profoundly dumb lawbreakers than about brilliant police work. These cops aren't crusaders, heroes, or real-life Dirty Harrys. They're just a couple of cops, and their experiences illuminate real life in a way that novels, films, and television rarely do. Thomas Gaughan

Novelist Cuomo (Trial by Water, LJ 1/93) writes a true crime book about his two cousins, John Cuomo and Al Della Penna, who work for the NYPD. One is a street cop; the other works in the crime lab. Alternating chapters provide their stories from their particular approach to dealing with and solving crimes, and each provides a different perspective from his field of work. Of the many cases discussed, the Amityville case will be the one most familiar to the general reader. Other cases will ring bells with and matter only to people in the New York area. For that reason, the book has limited appeal and is recommended for libraries in that area with an interest in true crime.?Michael Sawyer, Clinton P.L., Ia.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.