Shot to Pieces: A Novel

Shot to Pieces by Michael O’Keefe is a 414-page police procedural fiction novel I purchased on Amazon after I received an author alert about its availability. As a former law enforcement type, I like novels written by former cops such as O’Keefe. His career was much longer than mine and covered many parts of the job that I only heard about. That was only one difference. My experience was in California, he was in New York. Unless making observations at the federal level, which O’Keefe does, there is not a standardized set of terminology and procedures throughout the United States. There is a standard of training, known as POST (Police Officer’s Standards and Training) that is a goal of police academies but upon graduation, rookies are assigned to training officers where academy training is tweaked to the demands of municipalities and regions. All of this is to note that I learned things from this book.

Paddy Durr is a highly decorated veteran cop when the reader first reads of him in chapter one. He is already a hero and has been through many shootouts. He is in a marriage but it is ending and he knows it is all his fault. Paddy would like to stay married. He is still in love with his wife, Mairead, but has come to the conclusion that out of his respect and love for her, he should let her move on. They have grown children, some still in university, and they can also not accept the way Paddy has acted. Mairead and Paddy have been to marriage counseling; they have tried to work their way to acceptance and forgiveness. Every time they think they might be making progress, the video shows up and reminds all of them of what Paddy did. And for how long. And how many times. Even the kids have seen the videos. Of course they have. It is the age of the internet and the internet is made for (to complete this sentence check out some cool YouTube music videos made by WoW).

This novel is all about Paddy and his lengthy career. The story will shift back and forth in time both with Paddy’s career as a cop and his personal life with Mairead. In his personal life there will be the intense relationship of early love, the settling love relationship that included raising the children, and the disastrous infidelity that dominated the later, diminished loving relationship. This low point contrasts with a high point in his police career. His advancement in law enforcement has survived political attacks by corrupt public officials as well as the physical attacks by criminals. As the story opens we meet the Paddy as an acknowledged police hero at the zenith of his accomplishments and a crushed emotional person at his lowest possible point facing divorce.

The two stories will be told in the context of a third story, the public shooting of a well-known criminal. Paddy may feel that the shooting of one lowlife by another is OK but his sense of duty, solve the crime, takes precedence over his feeling that justice might have been served. Besides, there was an eyewitness to the crime who may be in possession of the weapon used in the crime so there is a chance to arrest even more bad guys. This is a no-brainer course of action so Paddy and his special Anti-Crime Force mobilize to solve the crime before it gets too old.
It is when Paddy and the team go into action that this story becomes a police procedural which should interest any reader with an interest in cops and crime.

Because Paddy is almost at the retirement stage, he knows everybody at all levels of his agency and adjacent agencies. They have worked together for years and it seems everyone owes Paddy favors, just as he is willing to do favors for others. Paddy is able to go around channels and get things done quickly. The reader will learn forensic facts and procedures, investigative techniques, interrogation methods, and innovative court procedures that can be used to keep bad guys in custody for longer than what one would think is standard. Outside of the investigation of this crime and while learning Paddy’s history, I learned things about Grand Jury proceedings.

The only weakness in the novel I found, one acknowledged by the author in his notes after the story, is that Paddy seems to have led an impossibly active life. We hear on many TV cop shows that some police officers go their whole career without drawing their weapon. Paddy seems to shoot people on at least a weekly basis. And yes, this is an exaggeration purposefully made by the author so he can bring in many stories illustrating the complexity of life as a cop. Paddy may be the story of fifteen to twenty police officers. Or more. Or less.

This is a linear story with few surprises. The entertainment of the novel comes from the processes that O’Keefe describes. This is a four-star Amazon read. O’Keefe has written a short story, Not Buried Deep Enough, which I will read soon.

Detective Padraig (Paddy for short) Joseph Durr is a true crime-fighter. He works for the New York Police Department and he does not shy away from all the blood and guts that someone who started out as a policeman and later get promoted to detective face on a daily basis.. The main plot of the book involves Latin gangs there in New York City who shoot each other when one crosses the line of another and of course Paddy and the rest of NYPD who work hard to decrease crime rates in the city. Mixed in with this storyline are Paddy’s memories of his beginnings and what he endured throughout his life to get to where he is now. He has a family whose members are his wife Mairead and his two daughters and son (who is the eldest). One would conclude that Paddy and Mairead have done a great job of raising their children. They also have done well in their lives considering their success with their careers which I must observe are well-respected by society. There are moments of bloodshed caused by gunfire, there is also a glimpse into Paddy’s weakness, and then there are the previews of the normal everyday goings-on in New York’s law enforcement world that I have concluded I will never be a part of. Haha. True!

I rewarded myself for finishing this incredibly masculine book in just four days (could have been more but I fought on) while having to suppress my nausea and my squeamish reactions to the violence that NYPD experienced author Michael O’Keefe generously narrated in this book. I got stomach cramps when the book mentioned the shooting down of a police friend of Paddy’s who died later on at the hospital. But straying away from that stuff, I do have to say that I felt compassion towards Paddy whose own weaknesses are those that men are often portrayed in the media as having. He cheats on his wife but he owns up to this mistake. He fears divorcing his wife and wants to patch things up with her. He adores his children so very much who the book describes as college-aged and very active in sports. He is respected by his mother in law because she understands his shortcomings. I felt like crying when he was brought to the test by the devil in the form of his daughter’s soccer coach. I began this novel with a fearful and squeamish stance but in the end I felt for this character as he has his flaws and therefore it makes him human. I conclude this review with the assumption that this book’s author Michael O’Keefe is indeed Padraig Joseph Durr and that somehow this book is based on him and his adventures, trials, and triumphs while working as a first grade detective for the NYPD. I think the names of the characters in his book here are changed up to ensure their privacy.

I recommend this book to all those with a preference for the law enforcement field and for mysteries too. I think those who were in the military and/or in the police departments in their areas across the world will endear this book and applaud this main character because they would understand his issues and his actions. I also think this book will ease up the tension and anxiety some people will have regarding policemen and women because this book provides a softened image of them towards the end. And I truly enjoyed this book for the following reasons: 1) I finished it even though I am someone who is easily intimidated by guns and blood and foul language; and 2) the ending just makes it worth my while. So what are you waiting for? Get this book now for yourself to read while we countdown to Halloween. Peace!

I loved the authentic feel of this book. The story of Paddy Durr was interesting enough but the situations in which he landed were true to life. Bad and good decisions have consequences and I loved reading how Paddy and his family both blue and blood, handled them.