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New York's Finest: Stories of the NYPD and the Hero Cops Who Saved the City

New York's Finest: Stories of the NYPD and the Hero Cops Who Saved the City

by Michael Daly

Twelve ·2021 ·432 pages ·Investigative Journalism
Maybe Someday
Maybe Someday
I Index
40/99
Maybe Someday

35/99

Critics

Maybe Someday

46/99

Readers

n/a

Scholars

55/99

Rating

15/99

Volume

89/99

Rating

4/99

Volume

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About This Book

The gritty, true blue story of two remarkable cops and an equally extraordinary nurse who provided the spirit and smarts that transformed Fear City into the safest big city in America. NEW YORK'S FINEST is the story of a city's transformation through the tireless efforts of Detective Steven McDonald, Nurse Justiniano, Jack Maple, and a host of hero cops—including the great niece of Jazz Age great Josephine Baker—the finest of The Finest. The son and grandson of cops, Officer McDonald was shot and paralyzed from the neck down while on patrol in 1986. The doctors said that if he did survive, he would be better off dead. It was then he came under the care of one Nurse Nina Justiniano. Where the teenage gunman was produced by the worst of Harlem's social ills, she personified its many graces, rescuing Steven from despair and urging him to transcend hate and bitterness. McDonald was then promoted to detective at the urging of NYPD Deputy Commissioner Jack Maple, a postal worker's son who sported a bow tie, Homburg hat, and two-tone shoes as he implemented transformative crime-fighting strategies to deter violent subway robberies. Coming up in the force, Maple had been routinely mocked for imagining the that Times Square would one day be a destination for families and tourists. Now, resentments and tensions are mounting in the same neighborhoods that most benefited from the careful consideration of officers like McDonald and Maple. But as NEW YORK'S FINEST illustrates, their legacies, and those of people like Nurse Justiniano, may well rescue New York City from its present state of unrest and struggle in the wake of protests and the pandemic.


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Reviews

"Daly's research and vibrant writing provide the reader with a clear understanding, especially through the two men he selected to honor, of what police work is supposed to be."

Judith Reveal· The New York Journal of Books Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"But the author primarily focuses on two cops—Steven McDonald, a young officer paralyzed in a shooting in 1986, and Jack Maple, the onetime transit cop who became deputy commissioner in the early 1990s and introduced comparative statistics, soon to become famous as CompStat, to target where and when crimes were committed."

Terry Golway· The Wall Street Journal Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Heaving various law enforcement sins onto Giuliani allows the main narrative to become occasionally hagiographic toward police, sometimes literally: When McDonald died in 2017, Daly reported on efforts to make him a candidate for sainthood."

Kirkus Read review ↗ Near the Top

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