PositiveThe Wall Street JournalNew York’s Finest introduces readers to an array of officers who made a difference on the streets of New York over the past 30 years. But the author primarily focuses on two cops—Steven McDonald, a young officer paralyzed in a shooting in 1986, and Jack Maple, the onetime transit cop who became deputy commissioner in the early 1990s and introduced comparative statistics, soon to become famous as CompStat, to target where and when crimes were committed. Mr. Daly knew both men well, and it shows ... Mr. Daly doesn’t shy away from the controversies that ensued after the introduction of CompStat and Maple’s departure in 1996 ... In Mr. Daly’s view...McDonald, helped save the city most of all through his generosity of spirit ... That lesson, offered by a grievously wounded police officer who had every reason to be bitter and angry, could indeed save the city. Any city.
Roy Flechner
PositiveThe Wall Street JournalMr. Flechner is hardly the first scholar to raise questions about Patrick’s life, but his brilliant use of source material from Irish, British and Roman writers provides context and historical sweep. He states up front that he is writing for a \'wider\' readership as well as for specialists. For the general reader, some of the book’s arcane subject matter—like the connection between Celtic languages and Celtic culture—and the author’s interrogation of ancient sources will require the patience of a saint. His approach leads him to ask some rather dense questions ... Of course, that is the world Patrick inhabited, and Mr. Flechner demonstrates why matters of language, identity, religion and culture in Britain and Ireland 1,500 years ago help us better understand this much-chronicled child of the Roman Empire and to see how his legacy has been appropriated by various causes and groups for more than a millennium. That issue—the use of Patrick for political and cultural purposes—comes up in the book, though Mr. Flechner doesn’t dwell on it in great detail.
