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A review by inkyfingerspgs
Busted: A Tale of Corruption and Betrayal in the City of Brotherly Love by Barbara Laker, Wendy Ruderman
3.0
I received a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
Before reading Busted, I had not heard of the Tainted Justice series. Having no prior knowledge of the events, I was sucked into the story and found the book difficult to put down. I shared the outrage of the victims and often felt my face twist in disgust as the tales of police misconduct got more and more outrageous, right to the bitter (and unsatisfying) end. But hey, you can't make up the perfect ending when you write nonfiction.
So why only three stars?
I almost put this book down for good after the first ten pages. Four of the first seven pages detailed a morning in Ruderman's home before she went to work. More specifically, she spent four pages talking about how bad of a parent she thinks she is and how unruly her children are. Four pages may not seem like a lot to be complaining about, but placing this useless information that is unrelated to the actual story so early in the book got me quickly disinterested. I wouldn't have picked it up again if I hadn't felt obligated to read it because I got it from a giveaway.
As I read more, I got the feeling that Ruderman and Laker wrote a pretty good and mostly interesting 175 page book and were told that they had to make it longer if they wanted it published. So they went back and added a side story about the failing print news industry. That wasn't enough, so they went back and described everyone's appearance in painstaking detail. That still wasn't enough, so they went back again and wrote a mini life story for every person they mentioned by name. This book reminded me of when I wrote quality essays in college, but had to water them down with BS to meet arbitrary word counts.
The story at the heart of this book deserves five stars, and Ruderman and Laker deserve that Pulitzer for exposing these atrocities as perhaps only journalists could. Their book editor deserves one star for either not cleaning out the crap or (even worse) requesting that it be added in.
Worth a read, but don't feel bad if you skim some parts.
Before reading Busted, I had not heard of the Tainted Justice series. Having no prior knowledge of the events, I was sucked into the story and found the book difficult to put down. I shared the outrage of the victims and often felt my face twist in disgust as the tales of police misconduct got more and more outrageous, right to the bitter (and unsatisfying) end. But hey, you can't make up the perfect ending when you write nonfiction.
So why only three stars?
I almost put this book down for good after the first ten pages. Four of the first seven pages detailed a morning in Ruderman's home before she went to work. More specifically, she spent four pages talking about how bad of a parent she thinks she is and how unruly her children are. Four pages may not seem like a lot to be complaining about, but placing this useless information that is unrelated to the actual story so early in the book got me quickly disinterested. I wouldn't have picked it up again if I hadn't felt obligated to read it because I got it from a giveaway.
As I read more, I got the feeling that Ruderman and Laker wrote a pretty good and mostly interesting 175 page book and were told that they had to make it longer if they wanted it published. So they went back and added a side story about the failing print news industry. That wasn't enough, so they went back and described everyone's appearance in painstaking detail. That still wasn't enough, so they went back again and wrote a mini life story for every person they mentioned by name. This book reminded me of when I wrote quality essays in college, but had to water them down with BS to meet arbitrary word counts.
The story at the heart of this book deserves five stars, and Ruderman and Laker deserve that Pulitzer for exposing these atrocities as perhaps only journalists could. Their book editor deserves one star for either not cleaning out the crap or (even worse) requesting that it be added in.
Worth a read, but don't feel bad if you skim some parts.