Working Vice: The Gritty True Story of Lt. Lucie J. Duvall

Tells the story of the first woman to head a vice squad and describes the daily life of a vice cop

When Duvall joined the Cleveland Police Department in 1973, 50 years after the first woman had been hired, change was in the wind and women were assigned to patrolling, an innovation. But Duvall, who won over skeptical and even hostile male officers to an appreciation of her dedication, candor and fairness, was headed for bigger things, show the authors. She worked in vice and, like most female vice officers, posed as a prostitute to entrap johns, although the authors rationalize away the notion that the practice was a form of entrapment. So successful was Duvall in dealing wtih rape victims and abused children that she became the head of the department's vice squad, a first for women in the U.S. She was chosen to attend the FBI Academy and then named to lead the CPD's new sex-crimes unit. Hosansky ( Your Children Shoud Know ) and freelancer Sparling do a fine job of chronicling the rise of a woman who has done much to expand the horizons of America's women police officers.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Splendid, detailed account of a woman's rise from one of the first woman street cops in the country to the head of Cleveland's vice squad. After lawsuits in 1972 by the Women's Law Fund compelled the city of Cleveland to hire women for zone patrol, Lucie J. Duvall signed for the police examination on a lark. No one was more surprised than she to find herself several months later graduated from the Police Academy and assigned to a precinct--the only woman on the roster. Duvall ran into a blue wall of resentment and worse--officers feared for their safety patrolling with a woman partner. But on one of her first calls, feisty, 98-lb. Duvall disarmed a huge man waving a pistol and began to build her reputation for sharpness and plenty of moxie. The higher-ups took notice and she was transferred to vice, working as a decoy in a prostitution crackdown. Crime-experts Hosansky and Sparling's account of Duvall's rise to command is chockablock with one fascinating, bizarre, macabre vice case after another. The serial rapist who wore an orange-and-black Halloween mask, cutting the clothes off couples with a bowie knife and forcing them to have sex with one another; the rapist who was traced by means of a ``penis composite''; the house searches into the depths of pederasts' madness--all provide a view of police-work unequalled in recent memory. In 1984, Duvall founded a new unit--Sex Crimes, whose mission is rape and violent assault, child abuse and pornography. Considered a ``professional's professional, but...also a person's person'' by her colleagues, she presently supervises 15 detectives and 1600 felony investigations a year. First-rate biography, and a fresh platter for true-crime epicureans. (B&w photo insert--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Before 1972, when Duvall joined the Cleveland Police Department, women cops were consigned to the Women's Bureau, handling clerical matters and crimes involving women and children. As a result of lawsuits, women were assigned regular duties, and Duvall found herself in a squad car. As time passed, she became the driver/bodyguard of the wife of controversial Mayor Dennis Kucinich, worked in the vice squad as a decoy, and participated in hostage negotiations, drug busts, serial rapist investigations, and child pornography raids. Eventually, she became lieutenant in charge of the vice squad and later headed the new Sex Crimes Unit. The authors recount Duvall's adventures with a feel for the rough drama of the city, but she is portrayed throughout as a spunky, gutsy, diminutive redhead who never backs down or loses her humanity. This one-dimensional portrait of Duvall as the perfect woman cop undercuts the drama and diminishes the real significance of her achievements. Still, this is a readable narrative of an exciting, groundbreaking career. For popular crime collections.
- Ben Harrison, East Orange P.L., N.J.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.