Blue: A Memoir – Keeping the Peace and Falling to Pieces - Hardcover

Sutherland, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1474606059 ISBN 13: 9781474606059

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2017

Synopsis

A Sunday Times top-five bestseller

A searingly honest memoir of life, policing and falling apart

'Every contact leaves a trace'

John Sutherland joined the Met in 1992, having dreamed of being a police officer since his teens. Rising quickly through the ranks, and compelled by the opportunity to make a real difference to people's lives, he worked across the capital, experiencing first-hand the enormous satisfaction as well as the endless trauma that a life in blue can bring.

There were remarkable, career-defining moments: commanding armed sieges, saving lives and helping to take dangerous people off the streets. But for every case with a happy ending, there were others that ended in desperate sadness.

In early 2013, John suffered a major breakdown and consequent battle with crippling depression. After a career spent racing to be the first at the scene of crimes and catastrophes, he found himself in pieces, unable to put one foot in front of the other.

Blue is a memoir of crime and calamity, of adventure and achievement, of friendship and failure, of laughter and loss, of the best and the worst of humanity, of serious illness and slow recovery. With searing honesty, it offers an immensely moving and personal insight into what it is to be a police officer in Britain today.

About this title

Review:

This courageous and finely written book is a timely invitation to think more deeply about what we ask of our police (Jane Shilling DAILY MAIL)

A stark account of a talented police officer's breakdown . . . This is a startlingly honest book and the final two chapters are heartbreaking (Richard Morrison THE TIMES)

I read BLUE more or less in one sitting. I thought it was wonderful - very powerful, deeply moving and utterly honest (Henry Marsh, author of DO NO HARM)

Admirably honest and movingly human . . . Sutherland asks us to look behind the faceless blue and see the individual people (SPECTATOR)

A remarkable book: a magnum opus on belief and success, on depression and despair. It is well written and intellectually demanding, profound and deeply moving. In places, it is funny; everywhere, it is thoughtful. It has as much to tell us about mental illness as it does about policing. And there is much love in it: for friends, for family, for life (Alastair Stewart)

An honest look at the vulnerability that comes with bravery (THE I)

Brave and very honest (Bear Grylls)

The effect of this honesty is to leave us both more appreciative of police officers and more concerned for their well-being, as well as encouraged that such a compassionate man was promoted so vertiginously. [Sutherland] describes police work as "fulfilling, humbling, inspiring, daunting, shattering, rewarding and soul-stirring" which is also a fair description of his book (TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT)

Courageous and moving (Tom Harper, THE SUNDAY TIMES Home Affairs Correspondent)

John Sutherland lays out the human cost of working as a police officer in simple, devastating terms (HUFFINGTON POST)

Book Description:

A searingly honest memoir of the uplifting highs and crushing lows of a life spent policing on the front line

About this edition

• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1474606059
• ISBN 13: 9781474606059
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288