NYPD Green Book Review - Page Turning Detective Thriller

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Category: Books

Published on Monday, 28 March 2016 15:16

Written by Janet Walker

NYPD Green, a memoir from Luke Waters, details his life from undocumented Irish immigrant to ranking detective in one of the largest police departments in the world solving horrendous cases and the interactions and working with other judicial agencies.

NYPD Green, recently released through the Simon Schuster Publishing House, is more that life on the mean streets of Manhattan. Growing up in the rough outskirts of Dublin, Ireland, Waters had always dreamed of becoming police officer, but it wasn’t until his arrival in New York City that he made his dream a reality.

Water presents a candid glimpse at the grit and the glory of police world in the Big Apple through the eyes of an Irish immigrant who spent more than 20 years rising up the ranks of the NYPD.

NYPD Green doesn’t sugarcoat relationships within the departments. There are moments when his honesty is refreshing and others when it is astounding.

NYPD Green moves in waves. Initially, the stories of Waters as an illegal alien, skirting the law, unaware of famous faces in all the wrong places were entertaining.

When he returns to the cases that remained in his mind after all these years, the crackheads, junkies, traumatized babies having babies and murdering them, the brutality of gang turf wars, and his stories of the South Bronx, where everyday life is interrupted faster than a New York minute, every minute, the stories are magnetic and have the substance to keep a busy person reading, devoted, and strong enough to push aside the technology in favor of the written words on a page.

Waters has written his thoughts of a life he lived daily. His memoir is well written, incredible interesting, stunning in revelation and revisits some of Manhattan’s most shocking crimes still fresh in the memory and mind.

His recounting of dealings with the DA; Feds, ADA’s and others present the dichotomy many citizens feel when having to deal with the law and then the judicial process. Could two causes, or efforts be any more different?

NYPD Green is a made for TV Movie in the making. Expecting the page turning thriller NYPD becomes the early year recollections and his personal history are somewhat of a distraction from the solid serving of man-size meat of his life with the force.

For a life well lived, Luke Waters survived the mean streets, unscathed, physically, mentally and emotionally the depravity, indignities and contempt that humans have for each other and simply the lack of value placed on a life have clearly left an indelible wound one that he has taken and used to clear the cobwebs and move ahead.

He presents the difference clearly, as he sees it, between the civilized and uncivilized who populate the same city and walk the same streets. The cases and situations he chose to recount with such clarity, after many years, I’m sure are deeply injurious or he’d be no different than those on the streets depraved without conscious.

NYPD Green is available online through all the usual platforms and in major bookstores.