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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Oh, The Stories He Tells!, 2 May 2004
Ed Conlon is a Detective with the New York City police Department. His trials and tribulations within the Police Department are skillfully told in his book "Blue Blood". This is a book of truths, of his life before and after. His great grandfather was a New York City Policeman with a dubious reputation. His father worked for the NYPD and later for the FBI, and his uncle, Eddie was a New York City Cop. Ed Conlon loved his dad. He was a disciplinarian, but a loving father who wished the best for his son. Uncle Eddie was a hero to Ed and his father. Police work was in the blood of Ed's paternal family, and he joined that great fraternity.It was not until Ed was a little older, after he graduated from Harvard, that Ed decided to join the police force. His time in the Police Academy, and his exploits as a new Police graduate are well documented. Throughout the book, Ed Conlon writes about the NYPD with pride and with a fresh face. These may be stories well known by other policemen, the same type of "things" that they may have gone through, but these experiences have not been as well written and documented as they are in "Blue Blood". Ed Conlon tells us about his time walking the beat in South Bronx to his job with the elite Narcotics squad. He shares his experiences on the street- how to talk to the people he works for, how to gain their trust and how to really do the job. He has many tales of life in narcotics- his informants and how they came to be. His tales are funny at times and sad and gritty many times. He becomes fond of his informants and his colleagues. Tales of how they coped with their professional lives that were often times filled with tragedy and horrid black holes. Ed Conlon shares the experiences of 9-11, the horror of that day and the aftermath. He was a newly promoted Detective, and he was in the office writing up a report when the first plane hit. His group of officers went to Ground Zero and worked the bucket brigade. They were then assigned to Fresh Kills Landfill, to go through the debris and look for bodies, black boxes and other evidence, whatever it was that was found. He had no famiy or close friends that were killed or injured, but he had plenty of useful stories and lots of memories. Ed had several uncles who had small resturants or shops in the Twin Towers- none of them were there that early in the day- they had all been saved. Ed Conlon finally had his Detective Promotion Ceremony. Because it was so close to 9-11 he was one of the few who smiled during the ceremony. Edward Conlon has two professions one as New York City Police Detective, and the other as a writer. It appears that he is very skilled at both. I loved this book, the writing is superb and kept me engrossed. For a first novel, Edward Conlon has written a book to be celebrated. prisrob
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by David Simon
by Dennis Smith
by David Copperfield
