Karen Chisholm
REVIEW
Review - The Good Cop, Justine Ford
Reviewed By
Sunday, September 17, 2017
I will admit to being mightily intrigued by this biography mostly because of the reputation of the subject. Ron Iddles is well known in Victoria as a dedicated cop, a champion of the victims of murder, and a dedicated and dogged investigator who never said never on any case.
This is a man who has lead a worthwhile public / working life. There are aspects in THE GOOD COP that explain what sacrifices he and his family have made in the pursuit of that career much of which serves as a very hefty reminder of the old chestnut, behind many great men... The book takes readers back through some of the family background and possible motivations for Iddles joining the police force, and it gives the occasional insight into what continued to drive him to solve the seemingly unsolvable. It also showed very clearly that the man was also susceptible to burnout, of turning to driving trucks as a way of clearing his head of the horrible things he dealt with in the day job.
Unfortunately, THE GOOD COP, doesn't feel like it does Ron Iddles justice. For such a strong story there was something in the style of the writing in this book that was too flat and bland with a strange, almost passive voice. What short sharp bursts of over the top hero worship there are, were quickly followed by repetitive chunks of uninteresting, sticky prose which didn't engage this reader at all.
In the end, THE GOOD COP was disappointing. An interesting personal story, not well served by a decidedly lack-lustre telling.
BOOK DETAILS
BOOK INFORMATION
BLURB
'A - Assume nothing. B - Believe nothing. C - Check everything.' Ron Iddles
In an incredible twenty-five year career as a homicide detective, Ron Iddles' conviction rate was 99%. Yet that only partly explains why Iddles is known to cops and crims alike as 'The Great Man'.
Tough, inventive and incorruptible, stoic in the face of senseless horror yet unafraid to shed tears for a victim, Ron has applied his country cunning and city savvy to over 320 homicide cases - some of them the most infamous, compelling and controversial crimes in the nation's history. To the victims of crime, Ron is both a shoulder to cry on and an avenging angel.
Ron Iddles never gave up on a 'lost' cause. He became a regular on the nightly news - the dogged face of Australian justice. Working long hours, dodging bullets, chasing leads and outwitting killers, Ron would tell his teams: 'The answer is just one call away'. And in 2015, that belief saw him crack Victoria's oldest unsolved homicide, yet another remarkable feat in a life devoted to keeping the public safe.
This is the extraordinary inside story of a real crime crusader. Ron Iddles. The Good Cop.
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Sunday, September 17, 2017 |
| Blog | #amreading The Good Cop, Justine Ford | Karen Chisholm
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