Paul Bacon

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A funny and revealing memoir of one man’s journey into and out of the New York City police department. In 2001, Paul Bacon was a typical young New Y orker: hip, liberal, overeducated, a little aimless. But then 9/11 happened. Hearing a call to duty—and lacking any better employment options—he joined the NYPD, with the earnest hope of making his hometown a safer place. Silly him. In Bad Cop, Paul recounts his ill-conceived experiment in public service, focusing on his own professional handicaps: his glass jaw, his overly trusting nature, and his fear of confrontation. The book begins with his police academy training, when he falls in love with the beautiful cadet Clarabel (and develops an unhealthy attraction to his sidearm). T he story follows him through an awkward apprenticeship and out onto the streets, where the touchy-feely Paul is transformed into the rough-and-tumble Officer Bacon. Through amazing accounts of his escapades on the Harlem beat, his memoir emerges as both a celebration and a send-up of the legendary force that protects New Y ork—most of the time.From Publishers WeeklyFor almost four years after the 2001 World Trade Center tragedy, freelance writer Bacon chronicles his quest in this humorous book to do his best as a New York City cop, yet the arduous task of law enforcement was much more than he imagined. Self-described as a hip, overeducated liberal, the author had worked at home for five years for an online company before joining the NYPD force, but the collective experience of the police academy and being a Harlem beat cop eventually wears him down emotionally. Everything gnaws at his resolve, including the grueling cycle of drug collars, the rousting of crooks and a crush on a disinterested Latina police officer. When Bacon later unravels during a security detail in a manic Jerry Lewis–style comic scene, he writes: I was no good as a bad cop and not bad enough to be a good cop. I'm lucky I made it out alive. Bacon, now a scuba instructor on Maui, provides readers with a madcap yarn of handcuffs, broken hearts and the thin blue line. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistThis memoir by a man who should never have strapped on a police holster has a wonderful narrative arc, spanning Bacon’s pre-NYPD series of menial jobs, a police career that lasted from 2001 to the 2004 Republican National Convention and that left him confused and exhausted, and a neat resolution as a life-saving scuba instructor in Maui. The events of September 11 (Bacon witnessed the collapse of the South Tower) propelled him from a desk job to policing in the worst part of Harlem. Feelings of civic pride and duty led Bacon to the streets, but what resulted was a series of humiliations and misadventures that he renders in excruciatingly comic detail. Part of the comedy and truth of this memoir is the way it counters expectations: the hero never does catch on with or win over either cops or perps, or he never becomes good at his job. A vivid and insightful saga of the wrong man in the wrong job at the wrong time. --Connie Fletcher