Few things are more profound for the author than the realisation that the reader has truly connected with your book. It is beyond gratifying to see that someone has read the story you wanted to tell through your characters rather than the one they had in their imagination when picking up your book among thousands – millions – of other reads.
I want to share with you this review of “The Accidental Cop” that has made my eyes water. I reread it more than a couple of times, and I know that every time I read it again, it won’t fail to bring tears to my eyes.
“The Accidental Cop is a departure from the Neglected Merge fantasy series, drawing the reader deep into the harsh realities of life in the early years of Latvia’s independence. Yet, the same deep appreciation of life, the same vision and hope, the same beauty of spirit, is present. The author’s vision is fully grounded in the genre, even as the genre is shaped by her vision.
This is the author’s world, the matrix of her formative years. And she carries the reader fully into that world. There is no glamour in poverty: Every grimy wall, filthy floor, bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, is described with intensity. The stench and the filth on the floor are real, and the despair and hunger that seeps into those who really do not have opportunities become real to us. These people do not choose poverty; it is a fact, an indisputable fact, of life. The choices in the workplace and in every aspect of life are limited, and the only choice that remains is how one will respond to this situation — to surrender to despair or to scrounge while clinging to a distant hope. There is no easy solution here.
It says something for the author’s control of language that as I read the passages describing the cold of November I could feel the cold seeping through the pores of my skin, into the marrow of my bones. I could flinch in the grim hallways, nose closed against the smells that permeated my senses. The background here is physically present, no idle stage prop. And in this setting walk the characters – some deadened by circumstances, some shrewd and manipulating. And some who maintain a grace and beauty of spirit, trapped in darkness but choosing to radiate light, people like Marta and Dina.
And then there is Roberts.
Roberts is pushed to the breaking point and beyond by circumstance, yet he does not bow down. He clings to integrity: “Roberts didn’t think he could appreciate life if it lost its value. Not seeing a person behind the dead body, no matter its decomposition state, to him, equalled human existence losing any higher meaning. If there indeed was such, in the first place.” The Accidental Cop, pp. 22f. He is a policeman by necessity, not design, yet he brings dignity to the role anyway. Through the intensity of his circumstances, crushed and with nothing left to hope for, he still hopes. We long for his triumph, and we rejoice in the little acts of goodness that prove that hope is not a wasted emotion.
That is why I consider this to be a most uplifting book – educational and cautionary, but with a profound hope for the human condition.”
The review is published on Goodreads:
You can read more reviews of “The Accidental Cop” here:
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