Corrupt police are in the news not only in a drama series
Corrupt police appear to have contributed to the death of Daniel Morgan, a private investigator from Cardiff. That is how I understand press reports on the independent enquiry into the case. Previously the police criticised the series Line of Duty for giving the impression that corruption in the police is widespread. That is something I commented on in a previous blog. When I wrote that, I believed the police were mostly honest but I recognised that corruption and/or incompetence made for interesting fiction on screen or in books. Now I have to reconsider.
Corrupt police are not history!
When I wrote DOWN, I set it in the 1970’s for several reasons. I thought readers would find the failings of the police and the judiciary in the book would be more credible then than now. I had believed corruption in the police had declined. Similarly, I had thought the same of racism in the police and in society in general. It looks more and more as if we may have made much less progress than I had thought in both areas.
The cover of DOWN. Were the police corrupt or just wrong?
Are the police corrupt in my other books?
In my series Accounting for Murder, set in the present, the police are always wrong! This creates an opportunity for my amateur detective, Frank Hill, to solve the cases. However, they are always basically honest. Perhaps I will need to make my next novel more realistic in that respect. There is scope for a corrupt police officer, or several, in my work in progress, On The Slate. For all my books, go to www.johnharveymurray.co.uk
Me with one of my books where the police were not corrupt: just wrong!