Books

The public in the past have naively avoided consideration of the fact that the principle difference between a democracy and an totalitarian form of government is not so much in the laws under which they operate as it is in the manner by which the laws are applied.-- Don L. Kooken, Ethics in Police Service. 1957. In the Part 1 of my review of Radley Balko's book Rise of the … [Read more...] about Rise of the Warrior Cop – Review Part 2 of 5: Justification and Permission

Since its inception, the police establishment has conducted itself more as the agent of the power structure than the servant of a pluralistic society.-- Former FBI Special Agent William W. Turner. The Police Establishment. 1968. I've been waiting a long time for Radley Balko to write a book, and now he finally has. Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's … [Read more...] about Rise of the Warrior Cop – Review Part 1 of 5: History

I'm trying to find some good legal thrillers to read, and it's not as easy as I'd hoped. I've mined out most of my favorites: Scott Turow hasn't published anything lately, Sheldon Siegel ran out of steam with Mike Daley, John LesCroart's stories have drifted away from the courtroom, and William Lashner seems to have stopped writing his hilarious Victor Carl series.I've … [Read more...] about In Search of Legal Thrillers

I like to browse through Amazon's catalog of cheap e-books to see if I can find anything interesting. As you'd expect, many of them aren't very good and probably wouldn't have been published in the days before on-demand printing and digital distribution. However, I thought it might be fun to blog about some of the better ones. (My first review is here.)This time I'd like to … [Read more...] about Fragment by Warren Fahy – Review