Officers Down

On July 4, 1976, Detective Sergeant Matt Holland and his partner Officer Rachel Cook responded to a burglary in progress in their Brownsville precinct. The pair surprised a group of individuals in the basement of an apartment building. One of the group apparently charged Holland and Holland discharged his firearm during the melee, accidentally killing a young man. Holland and Cook cope with shock as they are forced to endure a lengthy questioning by Internal Affairs in the wake of the shooting. The young man who Holland had shot was a developmentally disabled African American teenager. The neighborhood is up in arms about the crime, some seeing it as racially motivated police brutality. Holland and Cook are in the crosshairs of a political firestorm threatening to upend their careers and lives.

Officers Down is an electrifying dramatic narrative that snatches the heart and soul of its audience right from the start.  Author Eliot Sefrin writes a spellbinding drama that views the aftermath of a police shooting from a variety of angles, from the police to the victim’s family to the politicians and civil rights leaders. Holland and Cook are the book’s sympathetic protagonists enduring an unenviable trial by fire. Sefrin portrays the array of emotions felt in the wake of such a tragedy in a poignant, palpable manner. The devastation that is unleashed in the wake of unfortunate circumstances touches many victims, their reactions highly charged and visceral. Officers Down possesses layers of emotional and analytical depth that will reverberate with the reader well after its conclusion.