Unchecked power is a very dangerous thing. That’s why police departments have Internal Affairs departments (they’re not always called by that name) to investigate complaints of things like police brutality or corruption. In the US, it’s why, in some investigations, the state police are called in to look into certain cases. The idea is to ensure a fair investigation and limits to police power. As you can imagine, police officers don’t always like being, well, policed. It limits the things they can do, even if they truly believe their approaches get them to the truth. But internal investigations are important safeguards. It’s true in real life, and we see it a lot in crime fiction. Here are just a few examples.
Peter Lovesey’s The Last Detective: Introducing Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond is the first in his series featuring Diamond. In it. Diamond and Detective Inspector (DI) John Wigfull investigate the murder of former television star Geraldine ‘Gerry’ Jackson. As you can imagine, her husband, Professor Gregory “Greg” Jackman, is a prime suspect, but it won’t be easy to break his alibi if he is guilty. It’s a challenging case and it’s complicated by the fact that Diamond is accused of using force with an important witness, Matthew Didrickson. That matter changes just about everything in the case, and it doesn’t help that Diamond feels he is being spied on by a ‘company spy’ whose job it is to keep tabs on Diamond and report back. It’s unsettling to say the least.
Jospeh Wambaugh’s The Choirboys begins with a shooting incident at Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park. Several police officers could have been involved, and it will be the job of Internal Affairs to sort out who did what, and what, if any discipline is in order. The focus soon turns to nine officers who call themselves ‘the choirboys.’ They meet regularly at the park to vent, to drink, and to relax. As the story goes on, we follow those officers as they investigate and make arrests in the days and weeks leading up to the shooting. We learn about their personalities and backgrounds, and then we learn what led to the shooting. Wambaugh also explores what happens as a result of the internal investigation of their actions, and we see its impact.
Ian Rankin’s The Complaints introduces Malcolm Fox, who works in the Complaints and Conduct Department of Lothian and Borders Police (now Police Scotland). As you can well imagine, he and his colleagues are not exactly warmly welcomed by other departments, but it is necessary to have some oversight of what the police do. Fox is assigned to investigate Detective Sergeant Jamie Breck, who’s been accused of child pornography crimes. On the surface, it may seem like a straightforward investigation, but it gets complicated when it turns out that Breck is conducting his own investigation of a case to which Fox has a personal connection. Has Breck been set up? If so, by whom? And is Fox involved in some way? It’s a tangled sort of case and shows the sometimes-fraught relationship between different police departments.
In Leonardo Padura’s Havana Red, which takes place in 1989, we follow Mario Conde, a Havana police detective. He’s been ‘sidelined’ into the Information Bureau at Police Headquarters. The reason he’s given is that he’s being investigated for an incident in which he had a very public dust-up with Lieutenant Fabricio. It’s possible, though, that something more is going on. He gets a temporary reprieve when his boss assigns him to a new case. The body of a young man clad in a red dress is found in Havana Park. The victim is soon identified as Alexis Arayán, son of a powerful and wealthy diplomat. The case will have to be handled very delicately, as the Arayán family is influential. It’s possible that Alexis committed suicide; being homosexual in that time and in that place takes a heavy toll. Or, it could be that a homophobe is the killer. Or it could be something else. In any case, Conde is already under a proverbial microscope while he is under investigation. So he will have to be extra careful with this new case.
There’s also David Whish-Wilson’s Line of Sight. It’s 1975, and Superintendent Frank Swann has returned to Perth after a seven-year absence. He’s there to find out what happened to a friend, Ruby Devine, who was found dead in her car. Frank begins to have real questions about the way the investigation into her death is being (mis)handled, and if he’s right, it all comes down to a group of corrupt police officers called the ‘purple circle.’ He’s known about the group for a while and even spoken out against them (for which reason he’s already a pariah). But now that they seem to be covering up a murder, Swann calls for a Royal Commission hearing on corruption in the Perth police force. This, as you can imagine, makes him a ‘dead man walking,’ and the ‘purple circle’ members waste no time sabotaging everything he does, and threatening worse. It’ll take all his skill (and help from some friends he still has) to find out what happened to Ruby.
Commissions, Internal Affairs Departments, and other, similar, groups are tasked with ensuring that the police do their jobs with integrity and within the limits imposed on them – ‘by the book.’ It’s a necessary part of the police force, but sometimes, not popular at all. But the work matters and can add to a crime novel.
*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On.
Crime Writer Margot Kinberg 