From the bizarre to the brutal to the unbelievable, truth is often stranger than fiction, as these fascinating true stories testify.
Vikki Petraitis spent hundreds of hours interviewing police - and even accompanying them on active duty - to compile this collection of stories from the frontline of policing. Police officers from many fields of service, from Fingerprints, Search and Rescue to Homicide, have told her some of their 'best stories' - the ones that were out of the ordinary, the ones they'll never forget. The result is a riveting collection of real-life Australian dramas.
Cops - True Stories From Australian Police, Vikki Petraitis
Commenting on books written by people you know is always a little bit tricky, but one of the things that I always admire about these sorts of books from Petraitis is the way that she can tell somebody's story clearly, compassionately, often with a great sense of humour, but never imposing herself on the telling. This is a book which is very much about the people whose stories are being told. And there are some interesting little snippets not covered in other True Crime books - the perilous retrieval of a woman's body from a sunken submarine; the capture of a brutal child rapist; the search for man lost in the Victorian high country; the story of the death of a man in small town South Australia; and most interestingly the tracking of a pair of suburban cops during a night on the beat.
Recommended as a simple, well told tale of stories from the other side of the standard true crime offering.