BOOK REVIEW

EUSEBIUS MCKAISER | Wade into the treacherous waters with a revolutionary cop

Jeremy Vearey’s Into Dark Water — A Police Memoir is so much more than a memoir. It’s a poetic account of real stories

03 July 2022 - 18:52

Jeremy Vearey was offered a blowjob by a sex worker who had flagged him down along Main Road in Claremont, Cape Town. She was not fazed that he was wearing uniform and asked him, nonchalantly: “Can I suck you?” When he expressed shock at her audacity, she made it clear that many police officers were her clients. She was nonplussed. This is one of countless stories Vearey tells in his fascinating second book, Into Dark Water — A Police Memoir. It is an excellent follow-up on his first effort, Jeremy vannie Elsies. I do not like the subtitle of his second book — A Police Memoir — because it is so much more than that, a quietly incisive, efficient set of real stories and reflections on the connections between criminality, history, politics and multiple physical and psychosocial geographies on which our lives play out. ..

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