NYPD Green

November 2, 2015
Waters writes about life as an Irish immigrant and N.Y.C. cop in this tone-deaf memoir. He first came to the Big Apple in 1985 and worked illegally as a bartender. To achieve his dream of becoming a policeman, he lied to an official at the U.S. Embassy in Dublin in order to receive his visa and then relied on an underground political operative in New York to obtain official U.S. citizenship. Given his admission of those facts, it’s unclear why Waters was surprised to learn that some of his fellow cops dealt drugs on the side. Waters, now retired, seems numb to his tales of greed, corruption, and violence—including the case of a 14-year-old girl who threw her newborn baby daughter out an apartment window, or the man who killed his mother and brother, severed their body parts, loaded them into a shopping cart, and dumped them in the Harlem River. Waters’s nonchalant reporting provides stark contrast to the wise-guy tone he uses when re-creating scenes involving himself. He does, however, draw attention to important pay and apathy issues within the New York Police Department, and his account of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath makes for riveting reading.

November 1, 2015

Former NYPD homicide detective Waters offers a peek inside his experience of 20-plus years on the force. The recent discussion of police officers in the United States creates an opportune moment for a book that relates their point of view. The author provides an accurate if not very exciting picture of how he came to New York City from Ireland, became a police officer, then a detective, worked with the FBI, was involved in a major arrest, and retired. There's a nonchalant air to these episodes, showing that as police officers encounter a large amount of violence, such instances can fall into the mundane. Unlike Fred Pascente's Mob Cop, a police officer memoir penned with Sam Reaves, there isn't a theme that holds Waters's narrative together effectively. Those looking for the author to go into detail about corruption will be sorely disappointed, as Waters, while not condoning the unethical behavior that he documents, did not witness it firsthand. VERDICT Waters's story represents what many officers do daily, their jobs, and all of the gritty stuff that goes with it. Even though it's not the most absorbing account, this is for fans of true crime, criminal procedure, and memoirs.--Ryan Claringbole, Coll. Lib. at the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison

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