The Introduction of the High Levels of Corruption in the Police - Book Report/Review Example

The Club Summary of intentions and themes The club is a story about police procedures and how the procedure unfolds to solve mysteries in Hobart, Tasmania. The central point of focus is the murder and investigation of Sergeant John White who was a policeman known for his honesty and integrity in the police force of Hobart. The murder of sergeant provokes intense investigation as people who were close to him and others who were involved with him tell of what happened in order to unravel the cause of his murder. The story is told from perspective of different people and takes about fourteen hours after the death of the sergeant such as his wife, his former girlfriend, a local journalist and the lawyer who is in defense of the Aboriginal boy. The book presents many themes with a connected to the police work. Such theme includes violence, corruption, betrayal and preconceptions among others. Trust is something which does not exist in police in Tasmania as betrayal in very evident throughout the book. The book starts with the introduction of the high levels of corruption in the police until a suspect is identified with the murder of the sergeant that the focus shifts from concentrating on the corruption and moves to Aboriginal population. This is because two boys are arrested as a suspect to the murder of the sergeant and one is said to have killed the policeman. The Tasmania society is already facing strains with the Aboriginal community and this move escalates the rivalry between as tension builds when the police start investigating the boy. The author uses the typical language used by the police and the criminals in this field as descriptions of the justice procedure unravel in the story. The investigation scrutinizes the reputation of the dead sergeant as they try to unravel the events which led to his murder. There are also several instances of legal manipulation as the defense tries to protect the Aboriginal community. This story departs from the common crime investigation works of art as it not only provides the evidence from the perspectives of the police but also from those people affected by the murder and those with information at the periphery. The investigation through the use of the different people reveals that there was more to the death of the sergeant than the Aboriginal boy and the reader is already introduced to the truth about the death of the police as all the evidence is presented through the wife, former girlfriend, the layer and the colleagues of the dead police. Strengths The book has used a very innovative construction which departs from the commonly used construction of the crime investigation books. As a typical crime book follows the leads presented by the police to unveil the perpetrators, this book is different since the reader gets diverse information of the possible outcomes. Even if the suspect has already been arrested for the crime, the reader is given the power to judge for themselves from the evidence presented by different people. The book refrains from having a closed form of reaching a conclusion as seen when Detective Inspector Richard Moore perused through the dead police’s possession and declared that there can only be one interpretation to the murder case. This interpretation is not imposed on the reader as the reader is presented the facts and left to make her own conclusions. The description of the reaction of the Detective Inspector Richard Moore at the sight of the evidence puzzles the reader as the detective is not able to believe it, one wonders what it could have been. The author insists that, “A wave of dizziness crashed over him” (3). He had to look again to double check just be sure. This creates suspense as the author does not disclose what exactly that was since it seemed to be serious. The reputation of the dead policeman was viewed as very clean, with integrity and honesty while the evidence seen in his possession seemed to tarnish that. This can be seen when detective said, “‘Oh mate, what the fuck have you done?’ (3). The author has also presented strength in the editorial structure of the book. The book is written to present fourteen hours of investigation for the murder of the dead police. The nature of the investigation and the brevity of time taken for the investigation motivate the reader to read this book. The structure of the book enables the reader to be curious and stick to the story due to the use of creativity in writing. This is seen when the author begins this book with a hook. Detective Inspector Richard Moore has been assigned to investigate the murder and therefore he starts by analyzing the possessions of the deceased police in his desk. The reaction of the detective on seeing his possessions is sure to keep the readers suspended and waiting to see what exactly the detective found out. The author then departs from this point and provides the reader with a series of other evidences but now on an open platform. Through the perspective of other people, the reader gets to know the real police officer and the side that was unknown to many and the reason why he was killed. This structure provides more evidence chapter by chapter which helps in building the readers knowledge about the case. At the end of the book, the author brings the readers back to the hook. This is where the book began and it enables the reader to connect the story in a very creative way. The author has also been able to provide insights in the community in general as it helps in the interpretation of the case. The various layers of the story presents different populations in this society and it enables us to realize that the Aboriginal community in Tasmania is victimized, discriminated and brutally treated by the broader society. This was the rationale of the police picking the Aboriginal boy as the suspect for the murder charge without having conducted enough investigation. The police force is also seen to be understaffed and the officers are very corrupt. This leads to social prejudices where justice is denied to the marginalized community. The different layers of the story have also been successful in presenting the challenges in the police force by shifting attention from corruption to discrimination of the Aboriginal community. Weaknesses The major weakness in this book is the use of language. The book is very contemporary and being about the police and the criminals, the language used in this boom is a clear manifestation of the kind of language used by the police and the criminals. This book contains all the words which are used in the society to imply vulgar connation. There are many instances of free use of the word which is considered to the most vulgar and worst in the society. Many people are ashamed to utter not even to think of writing in this language. Reading such as piece of work is very challenging especially where the reader comes from a conservative society. The use of obscene words distracts the smooth flow of the story since they are too many and used freely throughout the entire story. While the use of this language represents the nature of the society the author writers about, it is evidence that their prevalent use in this context cannot be overlooked. It is very sad to relate this kind of language with the society since all the police force is made to look very vulgar and obscene. This language also presents the insensitivity of the author with regards to different readers who will read this work. This is because this kind of language is limited to a very small group of people who are able to comprehend the usage of this type of langue. Since this language is not freely used in respectable context, it is a real bother to have to read the whole book with repeated use of the obscene “c” and “f” words among others. A problem area in this work can be linked to the use of the language used in the writing of this work. The language is not appropriate for an academic work. The genre of this work is art which is used to shape the community since it mirrors aspects which are present in our communities. It is thus the responsibilities of the author to shield the general public the imperfection of the language used by finding creative ways to present the wok such as by sing indirect speech where the language is presented in a more appropriate way. Teaching literature using this kind of language can be disappointing to both the teacher and the students since the language used in supposed to be shielded from the children ion moral social settings. The worst part is that the language used was very foul and was habitually used as the natural language. It was not treated as special language but rather as the typical language the author adopted. Another problem area in the book can be traced to the investigation of the murder of Sergeant John White. From the indication of the book, the police officer was stabbed by a thief as they were trying to apprehend suspects while he was attending a burglary. The police was with his colleague, Lucy Howard and she was very injured in the process too. This investigation could have centered on finding the criminals and trying to uncover the criminals during the investigation. That could have been a great lead to who stabbed the police officer. This is because regardless of who the police officer in the scene was, the same fate could have been suffered by another police officer. This does not indicate an attack on a person out of personal grudges with other people since he was stabbed as the thieves tried to escape. However, the investigation in this case, centres to unravelling the true nature of the dead police by investigating his wife, former girlfriend, colleagues, friends and the lawyer. Although this twist in the story adds to the effectiveness of the plot, the theme and the purpose of the investigation was somewhat misleading by investigating the murder in that direction. As a result, his personal life is exposed and details which have been unknown are finally out. It is imperative to say that the police may have known who killed the police officer since the prologue and the epilogue converge to provide the answer. Editorial suggestions The use of foul language in this book has been a major concern for this book considering it could be read by minors who are meant to believe that this type of language should not be spoken let alone be written. This is therefore imperative to suggest that the use of language be reformed to ensure that it is reader friendly and can be used by even minor readers. While the use of this language may be motivated by the need to show the public the real nature of the police force in Tasmanian, this can be achieve without using express language. The author could consider using asterisk after the first initial of the word which should be used bit then can be made friendlier than the express word. Furthermore, the use of asterisk enables the author to build a gap between the vents of the story and personal attributes. It is easy to identify the author of this work with either criminal or police work since there is a correlation with the ease in which they express this language. However, should the author decide to use asterisk to cover these words, it shows that the author does not support the usage of the vulgar language as it allows the author to presents the words as anonymous. Another way to make better the language while maintaining the intended purpose is to report the words in indirect speech since this will tone down the effects of the harsh words. Work cited The club Read More