REAL PRIME SUSPECT

Sub-titled 'From the Beat to the Screen, My Life As A Female Detective', here is the jaw dropping reality facing women cops. This gritty memoir from a former DCI and the inspiration for a legendary TV Detective Jane Tennison in Lynda La Plant's Prime Suspect, Jackie Malton was a no-nonsense girl from Leicestershire. She joined the police force in the 1970s, a time of sex segregation in the police force. Male recruits were given a truncheon and female recruits received a handbag. Jackie was determined to become a detective and worked in CID and the famous Flying Squad before rising to become one of only three female detective chief inspectors in the Metropolitan Police. She describes the struggles she faced as a gay woman where sexism and homophobia were rife and how she dealt with rapists, wife beaters, murderers, blackmailers and armed robbers. But it was tackling the corruption in her own station that proved the most challenging. She describes life in the Sweeney, the Fraud Squad and as a hostage negotiator and as a consultant on many police dramas including Cracker, The Bill and Life on Mars and of course revisiting the most notorious murder cases for the TV series The Real Prime Suspect. 'Searingly honest, shocking and funny.' Her final words are to express gratitude to the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. 302pp.