A book that vividly captures the experiences of cops as they make life-or-death decisions.
A former Los Angeles peace officer presents a collection of first-person accounts involving the use of lethal force.
Retired LA County sheriff’s deputy Rangel (The Red Dot Club, 2014, etc.) takes another trip into the trenches of law enforcement, focusing on officer-involved shootings. Like his previous book, this sequel combines Rangel’s reminiscences with those of other police officers who, in many cases, faced death at the end of a gun, and some suffered horrific gunshot injuries. “We have a conscience and a reverence for life,” Rangel writes, but he also notes that “We understand to win in a life and death struggle we have to be more violent than those assaulting us.” The no-holds-barred testimonies of the author’s fellow cops evocatively detail what an officer feels and experiences, moment by moment, while in the line of fire; “How else can you understand the horror unless I take you there all the way?” Rangel explains. One officer describes a bullet striking a suspect in the skull, “like his head was smoking a cigarette”; another remembers the sensations of being shot: “you take a match and drag it across the striker on the side of the box….It was a thousand mile an hour fast red-hot zip tearing through me.” Certain common themes emerge—how time slows to a crawl, even though most gunfights last only a few seconds, and the incandescent rage that officers feel after being wounded: “I was in disbelief and offended that he actually wanted to kill me,” remembers one, while another says, “My mind screamed, ‘HOW DARE YOU TRY AND TAKE ME AWAY FROM MY FAMILY!!!’ ” Some readers may find the book’s oral history format somewhat repetitive, but Rangel does succeed in portraying officers’ emotions in unimaginably stressful circumstances. “Society almost expects the cop to be schizophrenic,” says a former El Segundo, California, officer. “You are supposed to be a robot and not a robot. It is the job that takes the most varied sets of skills there is.”
A book that vividly captures the experiences of cops as they make life-or-death decisions.Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9903173-7-1
Page Count: 338
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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