Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You

Stories

By Laurie Drummond

2004

First Published

4.01

Average Rating

272

Number of Pages

8H18M

Audio Length

This riveting debut collection of short fiction about women cops comes from the author's real–life experience as a Baton Rouge police officer. In an entirely fresh and unique voice, these stories reveal the humanity, compassion, humour, tragedy and redemption hidden behind the "blue wall." Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You centres on the lives of five female police officers. Each woman's story–like each call in a police officer's day–varies in its unique drama, but all the tales illuminate the tenuous line between life and death, violence and control, despair and salvation. Because the stories come from the author's own experience, they open a curtain on the truth behind the job–how officers are trained to deal with the smell of death, how violence clings to a crime scene long after the crime is committed, how the police determine when to engage in or diffuse violence, why some people make it from the academy to the force and some don't, and all the friendships, romances, and dramas that happen along the way. It illuminates not only how officers feel while they are in uniform, holding their guns, but also what they feel after they go home and put those guns aside.

Avg Rating

4.01

Number of Ratings

137

5 STARS

34%

4 STARS

38%

3 STARS

26%

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Laurie Drummond

Author · 2 books

Laurie's short story collection, Anything You Say Can And Will Be Used Against You (HarperCollins 2004) was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and won the Jesse James Award in Fiction for Best Book from the Texas Institute of Letters, as well as the Violet Crown Award in Fiction from the Writers' League of Texas. A story from the collection, "Something About a Scar," won an Edgar Award for Best Short Story. Laurie's stories and essays have been published in Story, Southern Review, Fiction, Black Warrior Review, New Virginia Review, Louisiana Cultural Vistas, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, Brevity, and River Teeth, among others. She is working on a novel, Memories of the Living, also for HarperCollins, and a book-length memoir, Losing My Gun.