READING IS FUCKINMENTAL / Jason Matthew Smith

COLD AS A WITCH’S TEAT

Let it be known that CSI ain't shit.

Let it be known that I hate television crime dramas. Perhaps “hate” isn’t correct. Let’s try fucking loathe to the core of my being. Shows like Bones and Cold Case are as realistic as Pamela Anderson’s ta-tas. And about as deep and meaningful as her various marriages. But I’m a sucker for real crime—murder, mayhem, and the numerous ways human beings have concocted for making each other miserable. And the crime that goes unsolved has special appeal. It’s agonizing for victims and the victimized, and somewhere in the back of everyone’s mind lurks this thought: Some piece of shit got away with it. Actually got away with it. So let me recommend Stacy Horn’s The Restless Sleep: Inside New York City’s Cold Case Squad.

Horn, an accomplished NPR contributor, takes you alongside cops with egos bigger than Manhattan as they try to bust cases that are beyond cold—they’re in a deep freeze. You get a fly-on-the-wall POV as she buddies up with law enforcement and hangs out with victims’ families. At no extra charge, you also get a brief lesson on the history of detective work in the Big Apple and how cold cases are mishandled. Yes, you read that right: mishandled—thanks to bureaucratic fuck-ups, office politics, and incompetence. None of which are the detectives’ fault. Factor in the ravages of time, and it’s nothing short of a miracle that any of these crimes get solved at all. But some do, and it’s that miniscule glint of hope that keeps the cops on the case, trying to close the book on some 9,000 unsolved murders since 1985 in NYC alone. Half a dozen pages into this book, you’ll want to scoop out your eyeballs with the corner of a TV Guide every time one of those goddamn CSI shows comes on. Just like me.   

Jason Matthew Smith is a Texan who never developed an accent, thanks to a steady diet of television reruns during his formative years. He now lives in Utah, where everyone thinks he sounds just like John Astin, the original Gomez Addams.