A Different Shade of Blue: How Women Changed the Face of Police Work (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

A DIFFERENT SHADE OF BLUE: HOW WOMEN CHANGED THE FACE OF POLICE WORK by Adam Eisenberg: court commissioner in Seattle Municipal Court and former contributor to The Los Angeles Times chronicles the history of the Seattle police force starting in 1912 along with comments from fifty policewoman; among the subjects are affirmative action, physical training, and survival strategies; such as Marilyn McLaughlin's: A lot of it is attitude...how you walk into the room. --Foreword Magazine, July 2009

As a long-time female police officer who was ultimately one of two female pioneers ever hired, Eisenberg's A Different Shade of Blue definitely struck a chord. I had to keep checking the cover to ensure this book wasn't written by a female officer herself! His in-depth, gritty, and thorough look into the lives of female police officers, coupled with his own background in law enforcement, brings the reader along to shatter the glass ceiling. As a crime writer myself who is currently working on a memoir about my own life as a female police officer, I finished the last page of A Different Shade of Blue feeling somewhat defeated--Eisenberg essentially wrote my memoir for me. Quite simply, he nailed it! A fascinating read! --Stacy Dittrich, former detective, author of Murder Behind the Badge: True Stories of Cops Who Kill and numerous other books, and law enforcement media consultant as seen on CNN, Fox, and E! True Hollywood

Product Description

Seattle is the perfect backdrop to see the full history of women in uniform since it was one of the first cities to hire women in 1912, the first to promote a female to captain in 1946, and one of the first to put women on the street as equal beat cops in 1975. Told through the voices of 50 women on the Seattle Police Department and covers the challenges of sexism, size differences, harassment, crooks embarrassed to be caught by a woman, going undercover to capture an illegal abortionist in the days before Roe v. Wade, moving up the chain of command, why affirmative action isn t such a good idea, how there wasn't a feeling of camaraderie among the women hired.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 245 pages
• Publisher: Behler Publications (July 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933016566
• ISBN-13: 978-1933016566
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #378,237 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Important Book on an Important Topic, August 12, 2009

By	Don Shay (Riverside, CA) - See all my reviews

Just past the midway point in "A Different Shade of Blue," a female police officer recounts in wrenching detail how a colleague, shot in the line of duty, died almost literally in her arms as she and fellow officers labored in vain to revive him. Powerful stuff. But anyone expecting a "Charlie's Angels" or "Cagney & Lacey" version of "How Women Changed the Face of Police Work" will not find it in this book, for Adam Eisenberg's remarkable oral history is no romanticized, babes-with-badges account. Instead, it is a solid piece of first-hand journalism, compiled from open and insightful interviews with dozens of female officers who served the city of Seattle from the 1940s to the present.

Why Seattle? Seattle, it seems, was one of the first cities to hire 'policewomen,' as they were then designated, back in 1912 -- only two years after the very first were hired in Los Angeles. But those early officers of the law were hardly the beat cops of today. They had no uniforms, they had no guns, they were relegated mostly to domestic and child welfare matters. Over the course of decades, however, they gained in responsibility and respect, and gradually were assimilated fully, if not quickly or easily, into this most masculine of career fields, confronting and overcoming countless obstacles, both in the force and within the community. Eisenberg examines this century-long progression in compelling detail.

"A Different Shade of Blue" should be required reading for any woman contemplating a career in law enforcement; but its scope of interest extends well beyond that narrow niche. Never dry or academic, it's a fascinating read -- an important book on an important topic.

Don Shay, author of Endangered Liaisons

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read, very interesting!, August 6, 2009

By	R. Addison "rachel dory" (seattle) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a thoughtfully written and interesting book! I enjoyed it thoroughly, and learned much about police work in general as well as the specific issues women faced as they broke new ground in the male-dominated police force. I highly recommend it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tells it Like it Is, and Was, July 28, 2009

By	Norman Stamper "Norm Stamper" (San Juan Islands, Washington) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

An aptly titled look at the role of women in policing, and so much more. Adam Eisenberg's new book, tracing the personal histories of women cops in Seattle, is as entertaining as it is informative and insightful.

You'll meet pioneering women who were treated abominably by their male peers and superiors. Of course, more than a few of these women refused to be victims, and they returned fire with the best of them--often with amusing outcomes. The women Eisenberg interviewed shared fascinating insights into how they learned to cope with the both the streets and the male-dominated cop culture. (I think it's important to observe: These richly detailed accounts could just as easily have originated in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, or any other city in the country.)

You'll find it all here: humor and silliness, tragedy and pathos, fear and fearlessness. Oh, and you'll also be introduced to a handful of honorable men whose selfless support taught new women officers how adapt to the demands and dangers of the job, whether on the streets or in the hallways of the precinct.

A great read!