Uncle Janice, Matt Burgess
Uncle Janice, Matt Burgess
List: $29.99 | Sale: $21.00
Club: $14.99

Uncle Janice

Author: Matt Burgess

Narrator: Rachel Fulginiti

Unabridged: 10 hr 13 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/06/2015


Synopsis

24 year-old Janice Itwaru is an "Uncle"--NYPD lingo for an undercover narcotics officer--and the heroine of the most exuberant and original cop novel in years. 

On any given day, Janice Itwaru might be found trolling the streets of Queens for drugs. Janice is an "uncle"--an undercover narcotics officer--trying to meet the impossibly high quota of drug busts needed to make detective, or be sent back down to uniformed patrol. So Janice is out there in her secondhand hoochie skirt, trying to get potential drug dealers--criminals, addicts, and dumb kids, whomever--to commit a felony on her behalf. Other days are spent in the "Rumpus Room" at the precinct, trying to keep up with the bantering lies and inventively cruel pranks of her fellow uncles while coping with the insane demands of the big bosses. With an ailing mother at home, her cover nearly blown, four more buys to get her gold sheild and rumors circulating that Internal Affairs has her unit under surveillance, Janice is running very short on luck as her quota deadline approaches. Now she has to decide which evil to confront: the faceless bureaucrats at One Police Plaza, or the violent drug dealers who may already be onto her identity. Bursting with the glorious chaos of the streets of New York, Uncle Janice is an uproariously funny portrait of how undercover cops really talk and act, and a compelling story of their crazy, dangerous and often nonsensical lives. 

Reviews

Goodreads review by Mackie

I really loved this book. Whoever blurbed it on the back as being like the Wire was dead on. A lot of tangential, but just as interesting stories, cops sitting around shooting the shit, and suspicion of both the "actual" criminals and the superiors within the police force itself. I actually finished......more

Goodreads review by Sandi

While not a traditional crime novel, since the emphasis was on characters and there was no real plot, I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. Janice was a very real character and while I hope her working life as an undercover narcotics cop was exaggerated it was interesting to read about. At times the......more

Goodreads review by Aimee

If you like the 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain, you'll like "Uncle Janice." Janice Itwaru is a 24-year-old Guyanese-American police officer in New York City. In early 2008, she's nearly finished an eighteen-month stint as an undercover narcotics officer. In the NYPD, the cop who makes undercover d......more

Walking the line between literary fiction and enticing mystery may be harder than passing a field sobriety test on New Year's Eve, but Matt Burgess does it with such ease that you hardly notice how daring he must be. Janice Itwaru, an undercover narcotics cop with a few undercover personal problems......more

Goodreads review by Ron

Breezy reading crime fiction with believable characters. The action and dialogue all roll along smoothly. The saints make mistakes and the sinners aren't pure evil, much as in real life. A reminder that "airport fiction" entertainments don't have to be stupid; those that enjoy realistic crime novels......more