The first half of chapter three follows Terrence McLarney as he investigates the shooting of Gene Cassidy.
The second half describes the ongoing investigation of the murder of Latonya Wallace, which is still disappointingly unsuccessful.
Before I get into what bothered me about this chapter, and the book thus far, I'd again like to point out how good Simon is at writing.
He is able to express so much about Mclarney's personality, without saying 'he's a pretty good guy.' He does say "Yet McLarney was also one of the most intelligent, self-aware men in homicide," page 144. But I think that he could have been left that out, and continued with the descriptive details that he already had written.
"McLarney, who as a sergeant spent a single day sharing an office with Landsman before deadpanning a confidential memo to D'Addario: 'Sgt. Landsman stares at me strangely. I am concerned he views me as a sex object.' McLarney, who after four beers spoke in football metaphors and would always offer his officers the same shred of advice: 'My men should go into the game with a plan. I don't want to know what it is, but they should have one.' Mclarney, who once drove home on a busy shift to rescue his wife and son by using his .38 to shoot a rampaging mouse in the bedroom closet," page 144.
The last part of this quote brings me into something that bothers me about this book, not that it's in any way Simon's fault-it's just indicative of the times.
For the most part, women in this book are wives, girlfriends, 'whores', or victims. They're crying, scared, or stabbed.
This book is non-fiction, so Simon can't change what happened to make it more fair. But I'd really like to see a bad-ass female detective busting perps.
Even when women are suspects, or committing a crime, it's still not a display of power in the same way as when men commit crimes.
"And the is-this-a-great-city-or-what homicide that Fred Ceruti handles in a Cathedral Street apartment, where one prostitute plunges a knife into the chest of another for a $10 cap of heroin, then fires the drugs before the police arrive," page 171.
This isn't a hard and fast rule, but it seems to me in this book, men are protectors, and women are in need of protection.
"In McLarney's squad, detectives who caught a case with a female victim were routinely prodded and henpecked by their sergeant, a cop governed by the traditional, sentimental judgement that while men might violate the law by killing each other, the murder of a woman constituted real tragedy," page 145.
Wait, what? Killing a woman is worse than killing a man?
This seems based off of the assumption that women are not able to fend for themselves.
Though police work is still very much a male dominated profession, I had the opportunity to go to an IAWP (International Association of Women Police) conference a couple weeks ago.
I got to speak with women from around the world who were strong and powerful and fighting for gender rights in their countries. I understand how hard it must be to work in a male dominated environment, but I'm glad that women do.
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