Slain and Abel

While sitting at his desk, a Toronto detective, Jamieson Abel, muses on his colleagues. “There are essentially three kinds of cops,” he thinks. “There is the guy who does everything by the book, who most of the station thinks is a useful idiot to send out to schools, do PR, ride-alongs with journalists. Then you have the Real Cops, who don’t believe in rules, who do whatever needs to be done. In between these two poles is the Wise Officer, who understands the essential hypocrisy of the organization and finds some balance between the need for formal rules and the need to get things done.”

Don Gillmor’s Cherry Beach is a story told from the perspective of a Wise Officer. Abel works the beat of St. James Town, a small, dense quarter stacked with high-rises, multicultural communities, and some of Toronto’s most economically disadvantaged residents. In an echo of Chicago’s failed Cabrini-Green Homes project, which bordered the affluent Lincoln Park and Gold...