Blue Blood

Blue Blood is a memoir by New York policeman Edward Conlon. Conlon worked (or, potentially still does) as a street cop in the Bronx during the mid to late 1990s. He's also a Harvard graduate, which makes him unusual in his field, to say the least. The memoir is long, over 500 pages and I was worried that it would get repetitive - and to some degree, that does occur. But largely, I was riveted in reading this. Conlon manages to paint a very telling picture of the life of the policeman without getting too in depth in any specific case. He also shows a side of the police force I hadn't really considered outside of Michael Connelly novels; the insane internal politics, sometimes which bungle cases due to someone's insistence on protocol or ownership of a procedure. Even with its length, it reads relatively fast, and makes you feel like you really have gotten a sense of the inside. Even so, many of Conlon's peers were worried about him, knowing he might be writing a book - I can't imagine that too many of them felt slighted afterwards. Even his Sergeant at one point, who he absolutely skewers for his lack of perception and acumen, is not named but simply referred to as The Sergeant.

The fact that Conlon discusses the beat in small, brief stories makes the whole novel seem as if he was relaying these stories to you over a beer or twenty in an Irish pub somewhere. And that is great - but given the length of the book, it seems like he could have cut down on some of the stories and given more depth to the best ones. While I did enjoy the book, it left me wanting a bit more. Recommended, but with caveats.

My Rating: 7.0/10.0