- Paperback: 402 pages
- Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (Jan 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0060738189
- ISBN-13: 978-0060738181
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 14.9 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 810,355 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
The novelisation of a film set in the 1970s, which tells of how Patrolman Frank Serpico spent five lonely years, despite threats from his fellow officers, fighting a fruitless battle against police corruption, until finally, in despair and frustration, he decided to take the final step. Reissued for the BLOOMSBURY FILM CLASSICS series.
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First Sentence
It is a warm September after in New York as I watch Frank Serpico, age thirty-five, the son of a Neapolitan shoemaker, walk with the help of a cane toward the entrance of a fash Manhattan hotel. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
It is a warm September after in New York as I watch Frank Serpico, age thirty-five, the son of a Neapolitan shoemaker, walk with the help of a cane toward the entrance of a fash Manhattan hotel. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having watched the excellent 1974 film version of Serpico starring Al Pacino, I couldn't get that image of him out of my head when I read this. However, that's no bad thing, as the film is a faithful adaptation of this absorbing novel by Peter Maas. It took me a while to get into it but then I became hooked; the story of one honest cop in a barrel of exceedingly rotten apples is both engaging and thought-provoking, and Maas gives us a genuine appraisal of a flawed man but one whose innate integrity leads to attempts on his life, the break-up of his relationship, and his isolation in a job he loves. Courageous and frank, Serpico sticks to his guns, and this story will leave you ultimately unsettled but uplifted.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The late Peter Maas was a master of investigative reporting. Nowhere are his skills more evident than in this story about Frank Serpico, a police officer who tried to rid the New York City Police Department of the corruption that was rampant amongst its rank and file. Eventually, Serpico's efforts led to the establishment of the Knapp Commission, which would do a large scale investigation of police corruption and the policies and procedures within the Police Department itself that would allow such to flourish. Unfortunately, his efforts initially fell, for the most part, upon deaf ears. Nothing of any real import was really done until Serpico was grievously wounded in a gun battle with a drug dealer in 1971 that left all of New York, including Serpico, wondering as to what really happened?
Serpico was a Brooklyn boy who had always looked up to law enforcement and grew up wanting to preserve and protect. Little did he know, until he actually joined the police department, that preserve and protect seemed to pertain to the bribery, graft, and extortion in which many police officers, at the time, engaged. Serpico's initial shock gave way to disillusionment, and he refused to accept the money that other officers took as part of their due. His naiveté was soon replaced by disgust at finding out how rife was the corruption within the New York City Police Department. That soon turned to anger, however, as no one seemed interested in cleaning up the cesspool of corruption in which he worked. Although he tried, all he got was the runaround, until his near fatal shooting.
This is a riveting account of Serpico's travails, and time has not diminished the author's riveting account of how Serpico took the system on. The author paints an interesting portrait of a man who was truly one of New York's finest cops. Although somewhat of a maverick and a loner, Serpico was a dedicated police officer, who only desired that his fellow officers follow the very same laws that they were to enforce. Serpico defied the system, and the system nearly defeated him. This book is simply a page-turner, and one that those who like the true crime genre will really enjoy.
Serpico was a Brooklyn boy who had always looked up to law enforcement and grew up wanting to preserve and protect. Little did he know, until he actually joined the police department, that preserve and protect seemed to pertain to the bribery, graft, and extortion in which many police officers, at the time, engaged. Serpico's initial shock gave way to disillusionment, and he refused to accept the money that other officers took as part of their due. His naiveté was soon replaced by disgust at finding out how rife was the corruption within the New York City Police Department. That soon turned to anger, however, as no one seemed interested in cleaning up the cesspool of corruption in which he worked. Although he tried, all he got was the runaround, until his near fatal shooting.
This is a riveting account of Serpico's travails, and time has not diminished the author's riveting account of how Serpico took the system on. The author paints an interesting portrait of a man who was truly one of New York's finest cops. Although somewhat of a maverick and a loner, Serpico was a dedicated police officer, who only desired that his fellow officers follow the very same laws that they were to enforce. Serpico defied the system, and the system nearly defeated him. This book is simply a page-turner, and one that those who like the true crime genre will really enjoy.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Tightly and skillfully plotted, it is refreshing to find that the 'book of the film' is arguably as good (if not better?) than the cinema production. With backdrops of New York in the 60's and early 70's, the subcultures of the New York Police Department come face to face with the integrity of one (unlikely?) police officer who inforces the law against everyone, including police officers.
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