Thursday, June 11, 2015

Crime Seen by Kate Lines

This is not my usual type of book but I heard the author interviewed on the radio and I thought it sounded interesting.  For the most part it was, though as a police officer, the author said in the acknowledgments she had trouble writing more than "just the facts" and at times it was a littler dry as a result.  But, I was able to skim over those parts and still enjoy the book.

Kate Lines was an early member of the Ontario Provincial Police - when she was first interviewed for the job she met officers who said women had no business being on the force, but nonetheless she was hired and moved through the ranks.

She started in traffic patrol, then moved to undercover, but her career really took off when she was selected to be only the second police officer in Canada to be trained by the FBI in criminal profiling (the first was an RCMP officer with whom she worked closely throughout her career).  She details her very interesting training session in the US as part of a group of international students.  Her instructors were fascinating FBI agents, many of whom she stayed in touch with after and consulted on difficult cases.

Armed with these profiling skills she consulted on some of Canada's most notorious crimes, including the Paul Bernardo case.  Not wanting to make the book about glorifying criminals she focuses on the victims and their families and does a nice job of making them very human.  She was clearly respected by them as must have received a lot of cooperation in writing the book.

She glosses over it, but does mention a struggle with post traumatic stress syndrome which caused her to step back from profiling at one time.  Eventually she retired from the force and now is a licensed private investigator and consults with business, police forces and even TV shows.

A fairly easy read about a woman's success in a historically non-traditional role for women - hopefully she will continue to inspire more to follow in her footsteps.

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