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Title: Hands Up : Or Twenty Years of Detective Life in the Mountains and on the Plains by D. J. Cook ISBN: 0-8061-0934-3 Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1958 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $5.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)
Rating: 4
Summary: A very entertaining book
Comment: The original 1882 publication was sold on trains and was based on interviews with David Cook, officers who worked with him, acquaintances, newspaper articles, and some court documents. The scarcity of the 1882 book is alleged to be the result of using its pages as gun wadding during an Indian scare. It's conceded the majority of the book was ghost written by Thomas F. Dawson.
During his lifetime, David Cook worked as a farmer, miner, soldier, policeman, U. S. Marshal, wagonmaster, and saloonkeeper. His diversified occupations acquainted him with the strengths and weaknesses of his fellowmen, contributed to his success in law enforcement, and resulted in the development of a remarkable manhunter. He founded the Rocky Mountain Detective Association, an unofficial and semi-secret orgainization of frontier lawmen, county sheriffs, police chiefs, and marshals. Cook's loosely knit group employed some of the organizational strengths of the modern FBI and was very effective in tracking dangerous criminals across state lines.
The book contains 53 chapters which are headlined by a crime or by the criminal(s) to which they relate. For example, THE ITALIAN MURDERS comprises several chapters as does MUSGRAVE AND HIS GANG. This makes the book very readable and creates an even flow to the narrative although chronological events often overlap the crimes described. This is a contemporaneous account so no bibliography is listed.
The writing is quite florid and the prose verges on "purple" yet causes no difficulty when read despite the perceived assault on the delicate sensibilities of some people. For instance Cook relates, "Under the stairs, in a dark filthy corner, lay four decaying human bodies, piled two on two...the edge of the hachet was besmeared with blood, while to the handle clung a tuft of hair...the mattresses and blankets were saturated with (blood)...four throats had been cut ear to ear and the sickening wounds gaped wide, like the mouth of some huge fish. The abdomens, the arms, and the hands of the bodies had been cut and magled, while blackened faces scarcely any trace of humanity wore."
The book is a compendium of the words, phrases, and statements used by people associated with the life and times of 1870s Colorado, Kansas, etc. The exploits of the men working for frontier law enforcement are revealing as are the procedures used when investigating the various crimes. General Cook worked forty-two years as a law enforcement officer and claims to have personally arrested more than 3000 criminals, including fifty-five murderers.
The cases listed in the book were selected as the best examples of Cook's investigative skills. They will delight those interested in frontier America crime and law enforcement plus, other readers will be equally thrilled by a "real blood and guts" history book as long as they can tolerate some exaggeration and puffery. Cook's "Code of Conduct" as outlined in the book is illuminating considering the present day tolerance by many of certain crimes and criminals. Cook's law enforcement advice was simple and direct, "To hell with crooks. Keep after them. Knock them around until they yell for mercy. That's the only treatment they understand."
General Cook never failed to follow his own advice as any reader of this exciting book will discover.
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