NYPD Green: A Memoir

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.[em] (Jan.) [/em]