The Detectives/Their Toughest Cases in Their Own Words

From rape to murder, from bombings to hostage-taking, the world of the New York Police Department's detectives is full of danger - and full of opportunities for heroism. These accounts from top investigators tell how it really goes down: never have detectives spoken so openly and in such detail.
Here are stories of what it takes: going undercover to catch a dangerous and seemingly untouchable drug dealer, defusing a bomb factory located in an apartment building with over three hundred people in it, investigating a brutal and elusive rapist who poses as a gypsy cab driver.
And for every crime there is a deeper story: how a detective tracked the criminal from crime scene to arrest; how a hopeless case turned around on the smallest condemning detail; and how insight, experience, and courage stopped some of the country's fiercest criminals.
With clear-ringing authenticity, Peter Micheels captures the action of the street, the politics of the precinct, and the drama of the courtroom.

In this informative collection of pieces on eight New York City detectives, the reader is given an insight into police work in a large city. Michaels, a psychologist at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital and the author of two books on the city's Fire Department, shows the wide range of activities that detectives can be involved in: his subjects serve in the Narcottics Division, in a Senior Citizens Robbery Unit, a Sex Crimes Unit, the Special Projects Unit (encompassing the Hostage Negotiating Team) and the Bomb Squad. The authenticity of the book, which includes numerous cases still unsolved, is resonant. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

New York City detectives talk about wearing the ``coveted gold shield'' and describe their most memorable cases in unrestrained, gritty detail. As he did for firefighters in Heat (1989) and Braving the Flames (1991), Micheels simply provides a forum for the detectives (two women, six men) to reminisce. Lieutenant Phil ``Sundance'' Panzarella, a cop since the early 1970s, worked in the Narcotics Division, the Sex Crimes Unit, and the Queens district attorney's office. He describes two cases that occurred in the same building in 1982 when he was with Homicide. An elderly woman, who had been bound and robbed, died from the gag forced into her mouth; and a 17-year-old girl was gang-raped and thrown from the roof of the building; in the latter case, while Panzarella thought he knew who did it, he couldn't pin it down to make an arrest. Detective Second Grade Anne Sowinski, on the force since 1979, worked the Far Rockaway projects for a year before being recruited, at age 23, to work as an elderly decoy for the Senior Citizens Robbery Unit. She provides an insightful description of selecting fillers, or ``extras,'' for identification lineups and painfully recalls cases of rape and child sexual abuse she encountered during her three years with the Sex Crimes Unit. Narcotics undercover work, says Detective First Grade Bruce Myers, ``was dirty, scary, and...like playing Russian roulette with a Derringer.'' He recalls making small buys on the street, ``standing around the barrels of fire...with a lot of smelly, undesirable people.'' On one memorable day, he spent the morning buying marijuana in the South Bronx, the afternoon copping heroin in Harlem, and the night purchasing a kilo of cocaine. Each case demanded a different set of clothing and a different personality. Despite the lack of context provided by Micheels's skimpy introduction, this is a potent inside look at police work. (16 pages of photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A case solved is not synonymous with a convict's vacation in the big house, because--as these eight oral testimonies from the NYPD indicate--a cop's commonsense conviction about guilt conforms more with street reality than legal punctiliousness. Such is the situation with at least three of the two dozen murders described here; the detectives involved are certain, circumstantially, of the perpetrator's identity--but can't get that bit of direct evidence that tips the scales of justice. So what these officers speak about are their general ways of investigating New York City's tidal wave of felonies. Each officer specializes in a crime: robbery, rape, narcotics, or homicide. And each specializes in an investigative technique: interrogation, hostage negotiation, undercover work, and electronic eavesdropping. Nothing here smacks of TV police dramas, all eight agree, in these transcriptions of their feelings about what they do. Micheels' book could serve to sensitize would-be detectives to the dangerous Hobbesian world they must confront. His is an impressionistic entry to the "true crime" lists--but then flying bullets, pools of blood, and traumatized assault victims leave indelible impressions. Suitable for the library's career or horror sections--take your pick. Gilbert Taylor

Eight New York City police detectives here describe their jobs, recount noteworthy crimes, and describe investigative techniques. The cops tell how they deal with sex offenders, rape victims, and drug dealers; describe their use of psychological profiling in murder cases, strategies to defuse hostage situations, and technology to locate and neutralize bombs; and narrate shootouts, close calls, and cases solved and unsolved. Together these monologs provide a sense of what it is like to be a detective in a city with a high concentration of crime while at the same time revealing the essential humanity of the men and women behind their distinctive voices. However, the limitations of this form of reporting are also evident. Too often the narratives comprise strings of anecdotes, with not enough background and descriptive detail to make them come alive and not enough momentum to make for sustained drama. Though the book is interesting and readable, the reader may wish for fuller, more involving accounts. For larger crime collections.
Ben Harrison, East Orange P.L., N.J.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.