shawn ritchie dot com

I like Winslow books; a bunch of shitheads, often with badges, live the FAFO lifestyle and generally have to watch everything and everybody they care about at all get absolutely wrecked, including themselves.

This book doesn’t deviate from that norm. Danny Malone, NYPD God-Hero who thinks the rules don’t apply to him, gets in over his head because he’s not as smart as he thinks he is and absolutely destroys his own life and a large chunk of New York City in the process.

It’s not much deeper than that, basically “The Shield” turned into book form. The entire system, from the cops to the mayor to the criminals themselves, basically EVERYBODY is a bad guy in this worldview, and… he’s probably not wrong? It makes for a somewhat depressing read, even as one enjoys the violent ride.

Winslow verges up to but doesn’t quite get all the way there in regards to critiquing capitalism itself as the main agency of the misery, which I’d personally love to see. When everybody involved in a system is miserable and corrupt, maybe take a swing at the system that produces those conditions in the first place instead of going with Everybody is a Bad Actor In an Otherwise Correct System? Because that falls apart when your entire book is a textbook about how it’s impossible to operate in the world AT ALL without compromising yourself.

But I Marxistly digress… Winslow isn’t a politician, he’s an author, and it’s an entertaining read about a bad cop. That’s what I wanted, that’s what this book gave me. 4/5 stars.