I didn't like this book to begin with, it all seemed a bit hard-boiled and the Police-Academy-meets-Porky's japes rankled. But then I saw that the cops' jobs had brutalised them: facing the worst of humanity every single day, sometimes you just got to drink, fight and use the expression 'ball' when referring to casual sex with cocktail waitresses. Gosh darn it, I began to care. I cried - twice, damn you. And I also sniggered at that classic gag: 'Madam, were you cut in the fracas?'. 'No, about six inches above it'.