9 square miles. 10,000 criminals. 130 cops. A riveting memoir by Baker, California's most-decorated police officer Compton: the most violent and crime-ridden city in America. What had been a semi-rural suburb of Los Angeles in the 1950s became a battleground for the Black Panthers and Malcolm X Foundation, the home of the Crips and Bloods and the first Hispanic gangs, and the cradle of gangster rap. At the center of it, trying to maintain order was the Compton Police Department, never more than 130-strong, and facing an army of criminals that numbered over 10,000. At any given time, fully one-tenth of Compton's population was in prison, yet this tidal wave of crime was held back by the thinnest line of the law—the Compton Police. John R. Baker was raised in Compton, eventually becoming the city's most decorated officer involved in some of its most notorious, horrifying and scandalous criminal cases. Baker's account of Compton from 1950 to 2001 is one of the most powerful and compelling cop memoirs ever written—an intensely human account of sacrifice and public service, and the price the men and women of the Compton Police Department paid to preserve their city.

本書は単なる警察手記の枠を越え、コンプトンという街の変遷を血と硝煙の匂いと共に描き出す重厚なクロニクルです。平穏な郊外がギャング抗争の最前線へ変貌する過酷な歴史を、著者は当事者の執念と冷徹な視線で綴っています。一握りの警官が巨大な悪の潮流に立ち向かう絶望的な構図は、現代の悲劇としての神話性を帯び、読む者の魂を激しく揺さぶります。 最大の見どころは、凄惨な現場がもたらす人間性の摩耗と、それでも守り抜こうとする正義の葛藤です。街を愛しながらも惨劇の最前線に立ち続けたベーカーの独白は、美辞麗句を排した真実の重みに満ちています。これは一人の男の戦記であると同時に、崩壊する社会の中で人間の尊厳を問い直す、極めて文学的な深みを湛えた傑作と言えるでしょう。