Internal Affairs [Hardcover]

Connie Dial (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2009

When Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Jim McGann goes out for his morning jog, he finds a car blocking his driveway. It's no ordinary car, though. It's a cop car and in the trunk is the naked, mutilated body of police officer Alexandra Williams.
For the LAPD brass, it's an unmitigated nightmare they're determined to clean up fast and keep from the public. For Mike Turner, the investigator for Internal Affairs who's assigned the case , it's a double edged sword --a chance to become a real cop again or have his career destroyed . For the reader, it's rare insider look into one of our country's most controversial police departments.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dial, a former LAPD Hollywood Division commanding officer, puts 27 years of experience and a lot of heart into her gritty, sporadically powerful debut. Sgt. Mike Turner, a principled cop working in Internal Affairs, thinks he's lost his fire for the job as he begins to investigate the sensitive case of a female officer found stabbed to death in a police car parked in a deputy chief's driveway. Turner enters a maelstrom of incompetence, indiscriminate sex, and major backstabbing among his colleagues, most jockeying for promotion, like his live-in lover, Lt. Paula Toscano. Like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, Turner walks L.A.'s mean streets as a man of honor, doing the right thing in an organization that rewards the weak and destroys the strong. Awkward point-of-view shifts, stereotypical minor characters and a tendency to overdo perversions mark this as an apprentice work, but Dial's realistic, often poignant portrayal of police work make her a crime writer to watch. (June)
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Review

Dial, a former LAPD Hollywood Division commanding officer, puts 27 years of experience and a lot of heart into her gritty, sporadically powerful debut. Sgt. Mike Turner, a principled cop working in Internal Affairs, thinks he's lost his fire for the job as he begins to investigate the sensitive case of a female officer found stabbed to death in a police car parked in a deputy chief's driveway. Turner enters a maelstrom of incompetence, indiscriminate sex, and major backstabbing among his colleagues, most jockeying for promotion, like his live-in lover, Lt. Paula Toscano. Like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, Turner walks L.A.'s mean streets as a man of honor, doing the right thing in an organization that rewards the weak and destroys the strong. Awkward point-of-view shifts, stereotypical minor characters and a tendency to overdo perversions mark this as an apprentice work, but Dial's realistic, often poignant portrayal of police work make her a crime writer to watch. (June) --Publishers Weekly

LAPD veteran Dial s debut uncovers a web of sex, narcotics and blackmail in the law-enforcement hierarchy.
When a pretty young cop turns up dead in the trunk of a car outside the LAPD deputy chief s home, Sgt. Mike Turner of Internal Affairs quickly discovers that the two were having an affair. Indeed, Jim McGann wasn t Alexandra Williams s only lover by a long shot. Turner s peregrinations into the seedy lives of officers and civilians connected to Williams reveal that she was cop by day, party girl by night, and was further involved in a venture that for a fee introduced policemen to women. Reluctance on the administration s part to look too closely into a senior officer s indiscretions or to expose its shortcomings to the media impedes Turner. Despite orders that he concentrate on his internal-affairs investigation rather than the homicide itself, he steps out of bounds to track shadowy personalities who sketch for him a circle of prostitution, widespread drug abuse and blackmail within the department. It becomes clear that his case isn t going to have the cut-and-dried solution demanded by his superiors; Turner must step carefully as he inches ever closer to the killer. Making good fictional use of her experience, the author also comfortably fulfills the requirements of noir tradition, wielding meat-fisted phrases as a brandy-soaked Turner prowls the Hollywood underworld. He s forced into deviance and deception to evade detection by ill-intending agents, who may include powerful members of the LAPD hierarchy. Jaded by department politics and scarred by the loss of a former partner, Turner takes a gamble that may well destroy his career and his relationship with a fellow cop. The mystery and its solution aren t as compelling as the drawn-from-life office politics and procedures. Those, in turn, are more realistic than the burnt-out cops, jive-talking pimps and other clichéd characters that are merely par for the course in this landscape.
A tough potboiler with swagger to spare. --Kirkus

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Permanent Press (June 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579621848
• ISBN-13: 978-1579621841
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,626,657 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Prior to her 27-year career with the Los Angeles Police Department, Connie Dial was a journalist who worked as a reporter and photographer for a chain of newspapers in the San Gabriel Valley and later as an editor for a trade magazine. She briefly wrote news for a local television station.

She joined the LAPD as a policewoman in 1969 but left because at that time women couldn't promote higher than sergeant and were given very limited assignments. When she returned in 1973 as a police officer, she was among the four women in the first academy class who would be allowed to work as patrol officers and whose promotional opportunities would be unlimited.

She worked patrol for a year and was asked to be an undercover officer for the intelligence division where she reported on groups who planned the overthrow of the U.S. government. After being arrested during a riot in downtown L.A. she left that assignment to testify on behalf of officers who were injured during the melee.

After being promoted to detective, she was assigned to narcotics division where she was the first woman to work the field enforcement section. She arrested street drug dealers, served search warrants and made undercover buys. With her partner she arrested several members of the Black Guerilla Family, a notorious prison gang. As an undercover officer she bought heroin from Jimmy Lee Smith, the paroled Onion Field killer, and he was returned to prison.

In 1985, she was asked to join a new special surveillance squad for Internal Affairs Division. The unit investigated police officers accused of using or selling narcotics or participating in other criminal activities.

As a lieutenant watch commander in the Newton Division in South Central L.A., she was on duty the night the Rodney King riots started and worked 12-hour shifts for a month following the riot. She has always admired the hard-working men and women of Newton Division who kept the city intact and innocent citizens safe during that very difficult and dangerous time.

Her career as a commanding officer began in West Los Angeles as a patrol captain. She was there during the earthquake and was the commanding officer who responded to the Nicole Simpson/Ron Goldman homicides. She spent most of the early morning hours watching the WLA detectives do a thorough and professional job at the crime scene before the decision was made to give the investigation to the Robbery Homicide Division.

After returning to the Narcotics Division as the captain for the Field Enforcement Section, she was promoted as the area commanding officer for the Hollywood Division. Hollywood was a productive, high-energy division where she promoted community policing and had an active successful youth program as well as one of the best Community Police Advisory Boards in the city. She received several commendations for community policing and recognition for her work in the community including the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Women of Distinction award. She was rated highly by her officers and at the time of her retirement was the only female area commanding officer in the department.

She graduated from the FBI National Academy in Quantico, VA and is a member of the FBI National Academy Associates; the International Association of Chiefs of Police; the California Police Officers Association; and a lifetime member of the California Narcotic Officers Association. She serves on the board of directors for the Los Angeles Police Relief Association and on the Los Angeles Police Relief and Assistance Foundation board.

She lives in Southern California with her husband, retired Police Detective Jon Dial and two Yorkshire Terriers, Bogart and Bacall.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gripping Police Procedural, July 13, 2009

By 

Allison M. Campbell - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Internal Affairs (Hardcover)

In general, I'm more concerned with the story than the biography of the author telling it, but in this case, Dial's twenty-seven-year career in the LAPD is relevant because it lends tremendous credibility to her debut novel, a police procedural set in the sprawling bureaucracy that is the Los Angeles Police Department. When a female police officer, Alexandra Williams, is found dead in the trunk of a car parked outside Deputy Chief McGann's home, it's a foregone conclusion that the investigation is going to be a mess. No one wants to deal with it, but it must be dealt with. When it turns out that McGann had been having an affair with the dead officer, Internal Affairs launches an investigation into the illicit relationship, while a parallel investigation in the Robbery Homicide Division teases out Alex's other relationships. Burned-out Sergeant Mike Turner, serving his time in IA and waiting for a promotion, ends up working the murder investigation, re-igniting his passion for police work and jeopardizing his relationship with promotion-minded girlfriend Lieutenant Paula Toscano. Turner is afraid that the police chief will protect McGann at the expense of the truth, so he walks a fine line between doing the right thing and keeping his job.

Dial's police officers run the gamut from decent people who make decent cops to a self-involved Chief of Police, to a spineless Captain, to cops who abuse their power. She doesn't give all the women in her fictional LAPD a pass, either, and I found that aspect of the novel particularly interesting. Sally uses her sex appeal to go after promotions, Captain Connelly was promoted only because she's a woman and she can't make a decision to save her life, Paula is determined and hard-working. I found Dial's portrayal of female police officers intriguing, and the diversity in quality really rang true.

This is the most illuminating police procedural novel I have ever read. Dial's long experience in various capacities with the LAPD puts the investigation in a solid context of bureaucracy that sometimes has to be finessed to serve justice. By the time Turner makes his decision to basically lie to his superior officer to keep working on the murder investigation, the reader understands why this is necessary to bring the truth to light. The particulars of the investigation detail dedicated surveillance, scanning of telephone records, and witness interviews that lead to the truth. This murder mystery is the perfect choice to make use of Dial's knowledge; since a cop is involved, Internal Affairs must be involved, complicating matters, and the department is caught between its mission of truth and justice and its desire to protect itself. The officers involved in the investigation have complex motives, and the backstabbing, promotion-mongering, and various relationships ring true. One wonders how many of these characters are based on real officers in Dial's past. She also portrays both sides of the bureaucracy; on the one hand, it provides the structure needed for such a massive organization to function, but it can also impede officers who are just trying to do what's right. Turner has to navigate the bureaucracy carefully, stepping outside it when necessary. Dial walks the civilian reader ably through the web of bureaucracy without being patronizing. An organizational chart and list of characters are very helpful to keeping the various departments straight.

There are certainly trade-offs in a novel that so elegantly portrays bureaucracy, organization, and structure. While I liked Mike Turner, I didn't feel particularly emotionally invested in him or the other characters. Part of the problem was a wandering point of view. Multiple points of view were necessary, but establishing Turner as the protagonist from the beginning would have been helpful. The novel begins from McGann's point of view, with Mike's point of view becoming dominant with the second chapter. Often, long sections of exposition substituted for more evocative scenes, especially when complex relationships were involved. Confrontations would be summarized instead of shown through dialogue, which would have been more powerful. Many of Turner's motivations are told, rather than demonstrated. In fact, when forty pages before the end, Turner is shown making an omelet for Paula and reflects that cooking relaxes him, I found myself wishing that more of these personal details had been revealed throughout the novel. I would have felt more connected to the characters as people, rather than as cogs in a wheel of bureaucracy.

That said, this was a cracking good read. The mystery was satisfyingly complex, with plenty of suspects and investigative threads that either didn't pan out or led to other clues. As the killer becomes more obvious, the focus shifts to Mike finding a way to prove it to the satisfaction of his boss, and that process, too, is interesting. I highly recommend this book to fans of police procedurals, anyone interested in an insider's look at the LAPD, and hard-boiled mystery readers.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Authentic Police Drama, August 5, 2009

By 

dcbooklover (washington, dc) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Internal Affairs (Hardcover)

Reading this book, it was clear to me that the author has inside knowledge of how police departments work. The book is a gritty crime thriller that starts when an LAPD Deputy Chief finds a gruesome dead body in the trunk of a car blocking his driveway. An Internal Affairs investigator, Mike Turner, teams up with Robbery Homicide detectives to investigate the crime. The plot is interwoven with a greater picture of the politics and hierarchy of the LAPD with a very large cast of characters. Although the insider's view of the inner workings of the police department is interesting and authentic, in certain spots this caused the plot to drag a little bit. At the end of the day, however, the murder investigation and compelling characters made this a great read. I would like to read more books involving Mike Turner and his RHD partner, Detective Montgomery.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exciting Story, August 10, 2009

By 

J. Moran (Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Internal Affairs (Hardcover)

LAPD Deputy Chief Jim McGann is irritated when he finds a car blocking his driveway as he goes for his morning run. He's downright angry when the car is still there on his return. Then he realizes that it's an unmarked cop car and it seems to be leaking blood. When the trunk is opened, it contains the naked body of a brutally murdered young woman, soon identified as Alexandra Williams, a beautiful young patrol officer who was briefly McGann's lover.

The affair violates departmental policy and Internal Affairs investigator Mike Turner gets the personnel complaint that follows. Chief of Police Sam Martin wants a quick resolution to the complaint, a resolution that includes a liberal dose of whitewash. Captain Nancy Connelly, Turner's boss, is spineless and indecisive and will not buck the Chief. But McGann has to be looked at in the murder investigation too, and the two inquiries are thus intertwined. That's okay with Turner, who relishes returning to real cop work by working with the homicide team. Besides, a young cop is dead and Turner wants the murderer.

Turner and his homicide cohorts, Montgomery and O'Neal, have to delve into the darker regions of the LAPD. The top brass' primary goal is to safeguard their careers. Secondarily, they want the Department to look good (see primary goal above). Third, they would like, if possible, to protect McGann (see first two goals above). Oh, and they would also like to catch the cop killer (see three goals above). Because the brass doesn't hesitate to hurt or destroy the careers of any cop whom they see as imperiling their three main goals, their attitudes impede the efforts of working cops. So does the endless bureaucracy and rules that have enmeshed the Department in recent years. How the homicide team works with, through and around these problems to get the truth is a large part of the story.

Dial uses the knowledge from her 27 year career in the LAPD, during which she went from patrol officer to division commander, very effectively. Her descriptions of the Department (regrettably) ring all too true. So do the conflicting loyalties and ethical problems that result. Dial's plotting is good, although in the end it turns a little too much on a hunch and on improbable revelations. But Dial's prose is fluid and clear, her main characters interesting and the story exciting throughout. A good book and a lot of promise for the future.