Blue - by Joe Domanick (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Beginning with the 1992 Los Angeles Riots and ending with the tumultuous police controversies swirling around both Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City in 2014, Domanick's fast-paced book is filled with political intrigue, cultural and racial conflict, hard-boiled characters like intransient, warrior minded cops like LAPD chief Daryl Gates and America's most famous police reformer, William J. Bratton. As the Los Angeles Times put it, Blue "weaves a compelling, fact-filled tale of a turbulent city in transition and a police department that often seems impervious to civilian control."

As the story unfolds, Domanick seamlessly injects and analyzes police policies and actions, while discussing police accountability and legitimacy, effective crime-reduction based on real, long-term community policing, and what is necessary for a new stage of progressive police reform to take place. As Kirkus Reviews summed up in a starred review: "This is a well-executed, large-scale urban narrative, sprawling, engrossing, and highly relevant to the ongoing controversies about policing post-Ferguson."

Review Quotes

-- "Kirkus (Starred Review)"

"In a time when controversial police actions have virtually split America apart, it's impossible to imagine a more important book than Joe Domanick's Blue. His mesmerizing account of how the Los Angeles Police Department descended into fanatic racism, then was healed by new leadership's combined commitment to fairness and common sense, is a lesson that must be learned by all of us, law enforcement officials and community activists most of all."--Jeff Guinn, author of the New York Times bestselling Manson