Customer Reviews

Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You: Stories

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You is the best collection of short stories I have ever read about policewomen. In fact, they are among the best police stories I have read, as well. Unlike much of the popular fiction about women who are private detectives, Ms. Drummond deals with the gritty reality of real police work. Having been a uniformed officer for the Baton Rouge, Louisiana police department, she can draw on lots of experience to bring us into the reality of this line of work. More importantly, she is a gifted writer who is able to put sensory and emotional experiences into words in ways that will assault and overwhelm your own senses and emotions. It's an impressive first book by an author who has great things ahead of her.

One of the strengths of her stories is that she engages you with five different police officers who have vastly different backgrounds and experiences. What they all have in common is that they are caring people who want to do the right thing, and are true to their female perspectives. These are not men masquerading as women, as much detective fiction is.

I had to ration myself with the stories. I wanted to read them straight through, but knew that I would probably not read as fine a collection of stories this year . . . so I took one a night. The pleasure from each story was palpable.

The stories have a tough edge. It's not possible to do police work without being affected by it . . . and facing up to limitations that will scar one both physically and emotionally. The last two stories about Sarah are as remarkable as any short stories I have read. I hope that Ms. Drummond turns them into a novel. I want to find out what happens next in Sarah's life.

As I finished the book, I came away hoping that more fiction will honestly portray the real-life experiences of women in difficult jobs.

In a stunning collection of short stories and novellas, author and former female cop Laurie Lynn Drummond describes life as experienced by female police officers. She writes of women who must come to terms with death, their first killing, the emotional overload of the violent, hard-drinking life of a cop, and of women who struggle for balance between following the rules and doing what's right.

Drummond's writing is very strong, filled with imagery that packs an emotional wallop while strengthening rather than weakening the narrative story line. In many of the stories, not much is really happening. A woman cleans her weapon and thinks about her life--and ending it. Another woman remembers killing a man. In other stories, Drummond uses more conventional narrative structure. In every case, however, the real story is that of being a cop, a woman in a man's world, and a human forced to wrestle with silly little rules at the same time she is putting her life at risk.

Every word in ANYTHING YOU SAY CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU feels real, packed with emotional impact, and heartfelt. This is one of those books you'll want to spend time with, savoring the stories and the feelings behind them. Well done, Laurie Lynn Drummond.

Laurie, we love you! We can't wait for your next book!

I am a newly retired female police Lieutenant and I can tell you this book was written about me (and many other policewomen I have had the honor to work with) during my 25 year career.

Two of my best friends (other retired/former policewomen) and I have discussed so many of our memories after reading this book. It was healing for all of us! It brought back memories and helped us confront the situations we had tried to forget for years!

Another reviewer from LA wrote about some other author's book as if the other author was a "real" police officer. Let me go on record as saying: Laurie Lynn Drummond was a REAL Police Officer who handled REAL cases and lived with the REAL consequences of her career choice of Law Enforcement!

God Bless You Laurie Drummond for giving my heart a voice! It has been a long time coming...

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to see the reality of what female officers face on a daily basis.

INTRODUCTION
Laurie Lynn Drummond's book from start to finish, draws you deep inside her characters. You feel the weight of the policewomen's tool belt and the subtle changes in behavior that quickly mold the rookie cop into the seasoned professional. She doesn't just capture the voice of the woman cop, but that of the human being that has chosen an at times very de-humanizing job. This job, will affect their perceptions outside as well, forever. They will never look on normal day to day life quite the same again.

BOOK IS IN 5 VERY UNIQUE VOICES:
The book is broken up in 5 very unique stories, with one woman police officer as the focus. Some are cops earlier in their careers, others are after they have become jaded and looking back. Others are focused on a single riveting situation. Each brings in a voice very human and very real. Unique too are some of the family relationships that provoked the officer to pursue this line of work.

The book is arranged in groups of stories.
KATIE:
The group of stories called Katherine, give you Katie Joubert's point of view. There are 3 stories where she tells you of the time she killed a man, her emphasis on training your senses to do the job, and the myth she became.

LIZ:
The second set of stories are about Liz, who is eventually no longer on the regular beat. Her story is not so much of one about policework, but of relationships.

MONA:
The third set is of Mona, a policewoman who has joined the force coming from the legacy of father who was a cop. Their relationship was not a good one and both this relationship and the hardness required from a job, are damaging her relationhips with her own family.

KATHY:
The forth set is of Kathy and her involvement in an unusual case over a long period of time. How first impressions can change and change again.

SARA:
The last set is about Sara, a woman whose involvement on a case became very personal and drove her to run away from all that is familiar, only to realize, it all comes with you.

ALL SO DIFFERENT, BUT EASY TO EMPATHIZE:
The author brings to life, the regimentation, the nerve racking tension and the at times visceral feelings many police officers face and puts it in terms any of us that have a routine can understand. Co-workers quirks, breaks, lousy coffee all are intimately painted in the character's palate of this very unique job.

IN SUMMARY:
I found this book hard to put down. It was well written and easy to read. Nice job, I'm hoping many more will follow.

There is more to Louisiana than New Orleans. If you have the time and inclination, you can take I-10 East out of New Orleans (leave early, before 6:30 a.m. if you can) and drive for approximately 60 miles along a highway where swamp foliage seems to strain at the bit to encroach the macadam. You'll eventually see an outlet mall on your left and, a few miles further away, a water park on your right. You'll know that you're on the eastern border of Baton Rouge, the state capital of Louisiana. There is a bit of self-conscious resentment toward its brassier, better-known sister, but the people who live in Baton Rouge tend to love the city.

Laurie Lynn Drummond is a rare Baton Rouge expatriate; born in Virginia, Laurie was a uniformed officer with the Baton Rouge Police Department and is now an assistant professor at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas. ANYTHING YOU SAY CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU is Drummond's first work, a collection of short fiction concerning female police officers on the Baton Rouge Force. It is a noteworthy collection, both for what it is and for what it isn't.

Her stories are not police procedurals nor are they detective stories. The focus is on people --- the officers and the victims. The ten stories are divided among five police officers --- Katherine, Liz, Mona, Cathy and Sara --- who are at various stages in their careers and dealing with the difficulties of the job and their outside lives. The stories are purportedly fiction, but there is a documentary feel to most of them. There is really only one, "Keeping The Dead Alive," that reads like a work of fiction, though I would not be surprised if it was an accurate account of an actual event. It is, coincidentally, the best story in the book and runs on twin tracks. One is the investigation of the brutal murder of Jeanette Durham, apparently by her husband. The other concerns the clandestine memorial services held by a small group of female police officers to remember women who are victims of violent crimes. The memorial to Durham goes suddenly and violently wrong, and the officers are faced with the choice of going by the book and jeopardizing their careers, or extracting a rough but righteous justice on their own. This is a haunting tale, worth the price of admission all by itself; I will never drive by the Pearl River exit off of I-59 by the Louisiana-Mississippi border again without thinking of this story.

The other stories in this work are memorable in different ways. "Under Control" is one of Mona's stories, an electrifying account of a police response that plays out a family drama on two different levels. "Katherine's Elegy" concerns a veteran, almost legendary, police officer who uses leads by example but who also uses her sensuality with a strange and somewhat sinister twist. "Finding a Place" deals with a retired officer who is no longer of the world of law enforcement and is experiencing an uneasy adjustment to civilian life. And "Cleaning Your Gun" relates the story of an officer who is bringing the strain and pressure of her job home --- with adverse results.

ANYTHING YOU SAY CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU will certainly be of interest to fans of crime fiction --- though neat and tidy endings to these stories are hardly the rule --- and some do not deal with crimes at all, but are, rather, character studies. Those readers interested in character studies, particularly women's issues, will find this collection worthwhile, with the caveat that the descriptions of violence and its aftermath can be unsettling. The blurring of genres is, however, commendable. And I'm certain that Drummond has many more dark stories to tell.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

It's surprising that this debut collection of fictional stories by a former Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police officer has not made every best sellers list in the country.

Laurie Lynn Drummond is a born story teller, even if some of the tales are chock full of brutality, death and mayhem. It's been a long time since I read fiction this good.

Drummond has put together a collection of "police stories" told from five female officer's point of view: Katherine - Liz - Mona - Cathy and Sarah. Each woman has a distinct voice and each woman works out her issues in her own manner and timeframe.

Yes, there are brutal crimes, body parts, victims and police procedure, but what sets Drummond apart from other "crime writers" is the way she peels back the layers of her characters. Drummond unfolds each one and presents it to her reader, like a gift.

One of Katherine's stories, TASTE, TOUCH, SIGH, SOUND, SMELL is almost too difficult for a civilian to read, but Drummond somehow manages to pull you through the horror. Mona's CLEANING YOUR GUN is startling in its desperation.

However, it was Sarah's WHERE I COME FROM that utterly transfixed me. Ex-cop Sarah Jeffries lands in a small town in New Mexico (population 986)and begins a new life after a series of events drove her to the brink of insanity. Drummond's ability to link Sarah's plight, small town life, Hispanic mojo, an old man's grief and a tragic accident displays a mastery seldom seen in a first book.

I look forward to future work from this author.

Enjoy!

Apparently, despite what streets we patrol, or whether we are male or female, police officers are all of the same faith, the blue religion. Ms. Drummond makes that poingantly clear in her book, "Anything You Say or Write." If anyone is interested in the daily trials and tribulations and frustrations of a real police officer, pick up a copy of Ms. Drummond's book.
I read some of the other reviews and noted that several of the people who wrote the reviews made mention of Gina Gallo's book, Armed and Dangerous, " which I've also had the opportunity to read. Both books were extremely well written, extremely entertaining, and as a 30 year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, I can tell you both books hit home like a bullet hits the bone. If you pick up one, do yourself a favor and pick up the other.

"There's a fine line between courage and stupidity." ~Officer Joubert

Laurie Lynn Drummond draws on her personal experience as a uniformed police officer for the Baton Rouge Police Department in the 1980s to pen this collection of short stories about five female police officers. This, Drummond's first book, was a finalist for a PEN/Hemingway Award. All ten short stories, of varying lengths, take place in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Something About a Scar received the 2005 Edgar Award for Best Short Story.

Overall, I loved reading about these women's relationship with the uniform, their comrades, how they valued their job and the risks they were willing to take. I was very entertained from a feminine perspective by this collection. Some of the stories were better than others catching the reader off guard with flowery descriptives like, "She laughed in consternation at this comment, her lips moving like butterfly wings." Because they are short stories the character development feels incomplete at times but mostly I was left wanting to know more about the officers. The attention to details is what makes this collection stimulating from the bruised hip caused by the holster to the confines of a bulletproof vest to the intricacies of a death and dying. I'm looking forward to reading Drummond's memoir when it is released. Reviewed by M.E. Wood.

I think all women in law enforcement, or those thinking about going into policing, should definitely read this book! Apparently it's fiction based on real events. Any woman in law enforcement can relate to the things she talks about. I would also recommend to males though just because I'm sure you'd like it.

The author is a fantastic writer... she sucks you into the stories with great details and imagery. I couldn't put the book down! The only complaint I have is that I wish it was longer! Laurie Lynn Drummond is a talented, honest, courageous and smart woman. If you are thinking about buying this book, please do, it'll be worth it!

This book gives tremendous insight into the lives of police officers, but it goes far beyond that to examine the consequences of violence for those committing it, suffering it, witnessing it, trying to stop it. It's a lightning bolt of a story collection, which has just won a Texas Book Award and completely deserves it.

The book transports you as you read it; your own life disappears, and instead you become part of the lives and minds of Katherine, Liz, Mona, Cathy, and Sarah, inhabiting their dark, romantically charged, adrenaline-filled worlds. The prose is fabulous, but because the people are so real, alive, distinct, and complicated I never noticed the writing after the first few pages, not until I went back to look at it, sometime after I was done. The book doesn't feel "written" -- it feels lived, and it doesn't have any of the characteristics of tentativeness or self-consciousness that would make it seem like a "first book."

There's a remarkable marriage of structure and content here that takes a reader down through levels of haunting, a descent into and into the heart of the potential chaos of daily life. We look at these women's lives from all angles, and one story refracts on another, illuminating it. The choices they make become more and more impossible. Where does the truth lie? What choice could they have made under these circumstances, when often there was no right choice, but something had to be done? How do they, can they ever, lay to rest the ghosts of the dead?

I wish that this book will be read by a very wide audience, not just people who identify themselves as interested in police or crime stories. It seems central in its clarity and concerns.