Officer Down Book

[ The main character, Sam, is incredibly unlikeable. I didn't mind that when I first started, because the mystery novel I'm writing has a similar personality character: stubborn, headstrong, quick to anger and vengeance, an eye for eye type of justice. She was at odds with her coworkers because of her own morals. But I felt like Sam didn't lose any of that by the end of the book. She remained stubborn and headstrong and disobeying of the rules until the very end. Not that I expected her to do a 180, but it felt like she didn't change at all. This book isn't in a series, which surprised me, because generally protagonists that don't change much in one book are used for series, especially in the mystery genre.

Second, she is having an affair with a married coworker. I can't seem to get away from affairs in anything I read lately and it's frustrating, because I don't want to read about that stuff. Plus, it basically makes Sam's character a cliche. She's the typical odd duck out, solve-it-on-my-own type, closed off to everyone, grumpy, and sleeping with someone who's cheating on their partner. This sounds like most mystery novels I've read. The only difference here is that she's a woman, whereas most protagonists are men. And she's not the married one this time.

I picked up the book because I liked the concept--an officer accused of killing one of their own, possibly on purpose. But the way it was executed did not work for me. Sam explained everything rather bluntly, leaving little up to the reader. She also observed/let things happen more than she did things. Yes, she went out and snooped and "did" things, but in general, she tended to cause things to happen to her, rather than taking control and doing something for herself. It made for a very passive story I never felt involved in, where I didn't really care about her as a character. There were no stakes for me; losing Mason was something I hoped would happen because I'm so sick of affairs. Plus Mason was an asshole, so I'm thankful things turned out the way they did with him. I felt a little better for Sam not being so stupid as to think he was an amazing guy right to the end.

Sam is also forced to use her body and gender to get a lot of the information she needs. This also frustrated me, because this gave me the opposite impression to her being a strong, independent woman. Yes she lives in a mostly male workforce and her enemies are men, but she has other options and resources thanks to her various forms of training. Seeing her using sex with everyone to get what she needed was just... ugh. Cliche piled on top of cliche.

Lastly, I know there are crooked cops. It's a sad reality. But the sheer scale of the operation seemed really unlikely to me, the number of cops involved. By the time that part of it was revealed, I didn't even care anymore--the whole thing seemed unlikely and that was just the cherry on top. Even given the facts later on in the story, I still don't get why the entire precinct thought Sam was lying about what happened that night. Not all the cops she talked to were crooked. Why were they so quick to write her off and try to get rid of her? The book is over ten years old, so maybe gender dynamics have just changed that much, I don't know. But the whole thing just seemed kind of dumb to me. (hide spoiler)]