"Busted" Is A Philadelphia Classic

Joel Mathis at phillymag.com offers his take on Busted, the true crime book written by two Philadelphia Daily News reporters about their Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper series on police corruption.

Over the weekend, I finally got around to reading Busted: A Tale of Corruption and Betrayal in the City of Brotherly Love, the March book by the Daily News Pulitzer-winning team of Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker. What a great book.

It’s an easy, breezy read — Philly Mag’s review called it a “captivating story” — but that’s not to say it’s insubstantial. Indeed, the narrative of how the two reported their “Tainted Justice” series of articles on police corruption for the paper deserves to take its place among the great works that have come to define Philadelphia in the popular mind — everything from Rocky to A Prayer for the City.

Three reasons you should read this book if you love Philadelphia:
 

• It’s gritty: In pursuit of their story, Laker and Ruderman chat up pimps, stroll brazenly into drug houses, and basically make themselves at home in some of the hardest-hit, dirtiest parts of the city, spending time among criminals, immigrants and the rest of the city’s dispossessed in order to get at the truth of a rogue drug unit. It’s a great example of the hard work and rewards that can go into shoe-leather journalism during an era in which many reporters can be hard-pressed to do much more than make a phone call from their desks. (Or home office.)     

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.phillymag.com/news/2014/06/09/busted-ruderman-laker-philadelphia-classic/?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EDIT:%20News&utm_content=Midday+News+6%2F9%2F14

Note: I reviewed Busted for the Washington Times and I interviewed Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker. You can read my review and the interview via the below links:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2014/05/my-washington-times-review-of-busted.html

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2014/05/my-crime-beat-column-my-q-with-wendy.html