Robert Rangel, who has done police and security work in the US and internationally, illustrates what happens when police meet villains with guns. He focuses on real cops; brief character sketches are followed by a skillfully woven account of a scenario in which the officer was shot in the course of trying to stop a crime. Sometimes the officer was not even investigating a case or a call, but, from a perpetrator’s point of view, the cop had to be wiped out so a crime could go ahead. An unforgettable vignette is of an officer using his arm to shield the body of his little son, while simultaneously praying, driving, and being barraged by bullets, one of which penetrates the shielding arm. There are some thematic elements that unite the stories. First, an astonishing number of bullets can fly within only a few seconds. Second, bullet wounds don’t necessarily hurt while the officer is doing his or her duty; only later does the pain kick in — maybe a bone has been splintered, a joint dislocated, with little obvious bleeding, just that little “red dot.” Third, the punishment often does not fit the crime: “The suspect was a gang member. He received eight years. He was out in four, despite being convicted of attempted murder on a peace officer.”
Written both as a paean to the heroic actions of America’s police in the course of their ordinary work day, and as an emotional tirade against those who would disarm the citizenry or go easy on crime, THE RED DOT CLUB employs docu-drama realism. There is no sense of embellishment – “just the facts” – and if at times the punctuation suffers, that deficit will be compensated by the raw truth of the stories. It is not surprising that their experiences, their personal injuries and the low sentences handed out to their attackers have made Rangel and his fellow peace officers feel bitter at times, though that theme gets hammered a bit too hard at times.
THE RED DOT CLUB is an up-close view of what it takes to be a police officer.
– Indie Reader.