scotsbookworm's review
4.0
As a fan of true crime, I like there were so many stories packed into this short book. Although some of the cases were hard to read the authors made light relief in between telling some stories from their careers.
sarabook's review
2.0
Read Hard Cases documents Les Brown’s toughest cases while working within the Scottish police force. Cases range from burglary to murder, with a lot of the cases still unsolved, and Brown uses a mixture of lighthearted humour and hard hitting details to drive his points home.
Unfortunately I did find this rather labouring to get through at times. The chapters are a little all over the place with no real anchoring points to tie them all together. All of a sudden Brown will go from talking about fraud and pirating DVDs to murder with no linking paragraphs. The title is also misleading, as a number of the cases are revisited and remembered rather than reinvestigated and there’s an almost ‘unfinished’ air about the cases - mainly because they’re obviously unsolved. This left me feeling unsatisfied, and at times also very despondent, especially with regards to the chapter on rape and the small disproportionate number of convictions. Brown, although he does state at the beginning that everyone can make mistakes, seems to take a particular hard line with police forces and is rather negative most of the time with regards to their ineptitude and insensitive ways with victims and their families.
I’d say this is interesting, for short book, but unfortunately I was left feeling distinctly unsatisfied.
Unfortunately I did find this rather labouring to get through at times. The chapters are a little all over the place with no real anchoring points to tie them all together. All of a sudden Brown will go from talking about fraud and pirating DVDs to murder with no linking paragraphs. The title is also misleading, as a number of the cases are revisited and remembered rather than reinvestigated and there’s an almost ‘unfinished’ air about the cases - mainly because they’re obviously unsolved. This left me feeling unsatisfied, and at times also very despondent, especially with regards to the chapter on rape and the small disproportionate number of convictions. Brown, although he does state at the beginning that everyone can make mistakes, seems to take a particular hard line with police forces and is rather negative most of the time with regards to their ineptitude and insensitive ways with victims and their families.
I’d say this is interesting, for short book, but unfortunately I was left feeling distinctly unsatisfied.
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