Crime Scene - Hardcover

Gelman, Mitch

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0812920848 ISBN 13: 9780812920840

Publisher: Crown, 1992

A rookie reporter recounts his experiences covering the police beat in New York City, describing children killed by stray bullets, a man struck by lightning, race crimes, the courage of police officers' wives, and more. 30,000 first printing. Tour.

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From Kirkus Reviews:

A tumultuous year (1989) in the life of a cub crime-reporter for New York Newsday. Unlike the comparable chronicles of Miami Herald reporter Edna Buchanan, Gelman's calendar-driven memoir emphasizes not the crimes he covered but his responses to them. And that's a shame, because the author's childhood infatuation with reporting (influence of a magazine-editor dad); awe at desking-down at One Police Plaza and working with Jimmy Breslin; rage at police-department politics; delight at falling in love with a fellow reporter; growing cynicism in the face of a year's worth of mean streets, and so on, simply aren't sufficiently novel, charming, or instructive to warrant in- depth coverage. What does demand attention are Gelman's convincing descriptions of a big-city reporter's grind--being available around the clock; racing into savage neighborhoods for a scoop; pushing against deadline to massage raw notes into a serviceable story. And when, infrequently, he does cover a crime and its aftermath in depth--the trials of the widow of a cop shot into a coma; the tragedy of a ten-year-old rape victim--Gelman displays the sort of clean-limbed, affecting prose that presumably made him a valued tabloid crime-reporter (he's since moved on to covering urban affairs). At times, moreover, he weighs in with startling insights- -as in his analysis of detectives: ``They spend so many hours trying to understand the criminal mind that they develop similar traits. They are skeptical of everyone and everything. Whether they are charming, slick, hot or cold, they always have an angle....'' Too often, though, Gelman's self-absorbed approach gets in the way of the terrific stories he has to tell; for the real moxie, read Buchanan. -- Copyright �1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

Gelman's journalistic success, prompted by his New York Newsday bureau chief's instructions, turns on mastery of what he calls the "Italian Rules": Do what it takes, just don't get caught. In 1988 this self-described "yup-puppy" was assigned to the crime beat after having spent two frustrating years as a researcher for the tabloid's editorial page ("I was zealous, determined and ambitious, at times to a blinding fault," he writes). But it's a redundant admission, given Gelman's self-revealing anecotes, like the one about when he intruded at 12:30 a.m. on a grieving mother of three whose husband had been gunned down hours before as the couple made their way home from Christmas Eve shopping. Readers put off by Gelman's ghoulishness, however, will come to respect him after witnessing his epiphany: the realization that in his reporter's bag of tricks "empathy is more important than intimidation or subterfuge." His depiction of urban mean streets--ghetto children killed by stray bullets, young girls raped, mutilations, racial gang wars--makes us feel anguish for the victims and their relatives, makes palpable the crime reporter's frustration at numbing police bureaucracy, makes our adrenalin pump whenever Gelman's 24-hour beeper sounds and we join him on the chase for news.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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