NYPD

"A compelling account . . . enriched by an epically colorful cast."—Business Week

"A fascinating ride-along with the largest and most influential police force in the country."—The Wall Street Journal

"NYPD is both enlightening and entertaining. It should be required reading."—The Boston Globe

"Fascinating . . . Lardner and Reppetto know their subject. Immensely enjoyable to read."—The New York Times Book Review

"Entertaining and witty."—The New York Observer

"Given the seemingly endless number of books about the NYPD, police brutality, and corruption, one might think it difficult to find a refreshingly new and in-depth approach to the nation's oldest police force. But this history accomplishes such a feat. Lardner, who has written on the NYPD for The New York Times Magazine, and Repetto, president of New York's Citizens Crime Commission, examine the long history of New York's police from the 1820s, before the city organized them into a formal department, until the near present . . . Both entertaining and insightful, this excellent book is highly recommended."—Library Journal

"In recounting the department's journey from its creation in 1845 to the notorious recent incidents involving Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima, the authors bring to life the history of U.S. policing, warts and all. This history and analysis of the NYPD makes much of the current contentiousness between police and citizens all too understandable. Lardner and Reppetto examine New York police practices from buying patrolmen's positions and promotions to protecting the interests of organized crime and Wall Street above concerns with ordinary street crime. However, the pattern of the NYPD, every 20 years or so of corruption followed by reform followed by corruption, makes for a telling backdrop for truly analyzing how modern urban citizens interact with an often alienating police system."—Booklist

"A comprehensive and elegant history of the New York Police Department, this book, written by a journalist (Lardner) and a former cop (Reppetto), charts the department's development, from its origins as a collection of unorganized watchmen in the 1820s to its recent past. In crisp, anecdote-rich prose, Lardner (a New Yorker contributor) and Reppetto (now president of New York's Citizens Crime Commission) take readers on a chronological tour through the years when the department reluctantly adopted firearms and uniforms and when police applicants depended on patronage, through wave after wave of anti-corruption ferment, and through years of controversy. Drawing on sources ranging from the memoir of George Washington Walling, a 19th-century officer who saw action during most of the era's flashpoints (including the 1849 Opera House Riot and the 1863 Draft Riots), to newspaper accounts and legislative committee reports, Lardner and Reppetto assess the potential for good and bad in the city and on its police force . . . Their account is at once entertaining, historical and engaged with hard questions about the nature and politics of police work. A true accomplishment."—Publishers Weekly