cover image The Broken Blue Line

The Broken Blue Line

Connie Dial, . . Permanent, $28 (256pp) ISBN 978-1-57962-200-8

LAPD internal affairs detective Mike Turner and a few colleagues risk lives and careers to follow the spirit, if not the letter, of the law in Dial's competent follow-up to Internal Affairs (2009). Turner is an important cog in a squad that takes down cops who break the laws they're intended to enforce. Unfortunately, his boss, Lieutenant Metcalfe, is primarily concerned with career advancement, and squad leader Tom Weaver is careful to play by the book and won't buck Metcalfe. Turner is willing to protect rasher comrades as they try to catch crooked cop Ian Conner, who's faked a back injury and is “stealing guns and committing felonies with a gang of white boys and Mexicans in the Valley.” On the personal side, Turner must deal with an elderly retired cop he takes in as well as his flighty on-again/off-again girlfriend. Dial, a 27-year veteran of the LAPD, paints a dispiriting picture of a force riven by incompetence and ambition. (June)