Book: Bad Cop, by Paul Bacon (2009)

Sometimes a blurb gets it right. Neal Pollack described this book by Paul Bacon as “a season of The Wire written by David Sedaris.” That about nails it.

Bacon was working a data entry job near the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001. In the aftermath of the attack, he was moved to do something for the city he loved. Too old for New York’s Bravest, he turned to the Finest. He expects to be on the front lines. Instead he becomes a master of traffic tickets, crushed by paperwork and crushing on a woman in blue. It’s a clear-eyed look at the day-to-day of police work (“You get into one kind of trouble to avoid another. This is the job.”) that’s also very funny. As you might expect from a cop named Bacon.

Miscellaneous: Links

The latest AV Club Random Roles features Joe Mantegna. You should know that I will do his Harry Flugelman dialogue from Three Amigos at the drop of a hat.

At Slate, Pictures at a Revolution author Mark Harris raves about the Warner Archive. I bought their DVD of the neglected noir The Money Trap, about which I have strong feelings, and was blown away by the picture quality. The movie holds up, too.