Superbia

Well. this was some book!!! I read iton my kindle in less than 24hours. I couldn't put it down. At my age of 60ish it is the BEST book I have ever read,I promise you I will read it again. supriseingly so things made just laugh out loud to myself. this book is written by the heart and soul of the very talented and gited author Bernard J. Schaffer. omg so well done. should be made itno a movie. well. buy it and LOVE IT as I did.

This is a brutally honest and graphic glimpse into the world of law enforcement. It has scenes that would make editors at HBO cringe, but it also has scenes that will make you want to hug your kids (as well as disembowel anyone who would dare hurt them). It's funny and disgusting. Bitterly sad and inspiring. If you ever wanted to read a book about cops by a writer who happens to be a cop this is it. Superbia is to police what Bringing Out the Dead is to EMT's.

Great story that will make a reader laugh and cringe. Enjoyed it enough that I'm getting Superbia 2 right now.
Not many modern writers are doing anything other than cookie-cutter forgetful work. Bernard breaks free and sets his own bar with stories that cannot be forgotten or kept from being drawn into.

Slow to mild speed thriller, as a former Arizona correctional officer who worked death row and predator units. The abuse towards the innocent, had awaken the disgust I felt for all those worthless empty hollow jump suits.

If fiction were a baseball game, Bernard Schaffer would be filling the stadium

I read another of his books, Whitechapel, which imagined a duel between Sherlock Holmes ( a fictional character) and Jack the Ripper ( a real life bad guy who got away).

This time, Schaffer moves from the 1800's to present day in the gritty police procedural, Superbia. Believe the other positive reviews.
Really.

Schaffer is just as comfortable writing fiction in the 1800's as he is in 2012.

Superbia is a 'What If' about cops who go to work every day knowing they have to stand toe to toe with people who do not care about the rules of society. Be thankful they're ( the cops) out there.

The writing is excellent. I laughed, got mad, and cried. The cuss words were appropriate in the context of dialog, and did not distract, but flowed naturally. I will read more of this author's books. Thanks for a look behind the scenes.

I admire folks who work in law enforcement. I wouldn't want their jobs. It takes a special breed to handle that. Writing about it also takes a special breed. Someone who can write honestly about it without exaggerating to the point of making the cops look like pathetic slobs who can't relate to their own families, abuse criminals, and flagrantly violate the law while trying to enforce it. I realize this is probably the norm for a few of the folks out there. But I honestly can't buy it for the majority of our law enforcement community. Plus the writing is not that great. Too much vulgarity, even for cops, and not enough about the correct way to effect law enforcement. I think this book does a disservice to the policeman. But, if you like that sort of thing, you will enjoy this book. It's to a bad read. I can't quite grasp what the four and five-star reviews are about because they didn't really say anything concrete about the book, dealing instead with generic praise about nothing in particular. But don't let that stop you from reading the book. It's okay and worth the time if you like violence and profanity.

There’s a predominance of incessant dialogue in this one; but I could not assimilate with the characters. I can feel for the author’s endeavour to gain the readers’ sympathy with the plight of modern law enforcement, but: sorry, it did not work for me anyway...maybe it will with you?

Our hero sleeps while on duty and plays the victim when another officer is killed. The chief of police spends all his time looking for a place to retire and zero time administering his department and the second in command is as competent as Sgt Schultz (Hogan's Heroes) and thinks traffic tickets are more important police work than investigating drug and child molestation crimes. Add to this every bad line from a slew of c grade movies and you've got this book. It doesn't get better. Avoid this book

With Superbia Schaffer has delivered a satisfying and well placed kick in the groin to the "crime mistery" novels and TV series out there. I just finished Superbia in a printed collected edition and I will start Superbia 2 as soon as the effects wear off. Indeed, reading Superbia felt to me like holding a box of firecrackers I inadvertently lighted when I opened it. To sum it up, this book comes up in the the store search engine when you browse "true cop stories". Thing is, those testimonial books tend to get boring.
For the record, I don't read Connolly, Patterson, Baldacci, whomever. I tried, but truth is I cannot tell one from the other. And why? Because I crave for the type of book like Schaffer has delivered here. There are almost no "crime mysteries" or "perfect crimes" out there, "evil criminals" are scarce to come by, and most of the time police is dealing with dumb and petty criminals. The mysteries you want to read are in the stories of the main characters, and their enemies are most of the time working or living along with them. And this is what you will get out from Schaffer's Superbia.
I might very well surprise myself rereading Superbia before starting Superbia 2.
For the moment I am still enjoying the firecrackers from my first read of Superbia.

Good reviews really encouraged me to download this book. It started off GREAT, but after a riveting beginning, it never really "took off" for me. There were too many plots to follow.

The book lacked focus, but will not short you on profanity. Some of the language is unnecessary, and will be offensive to some.

The author, who purports to be a police officer, paints an incredibly unrealistic picture of police work. If you're looking for a mediocre read that's filled with foul language and a completely innacurate picture of those who actually serve and protect you and your families, this book is for you. I simply can't recommend it, otherwise.

I thought this might be a second rate book written by some poor SOB trying to make a living at best. How wrong I was! This book is very well written with the fewest number of typographical errors I have ever seen in an electronic book; this in itself is a miracle. The story is very engaging, interesting, and suspenseful with perfectly placed comic relief. It is scary to think that parts of this story are based on reality! I don't want to know which parts are true! The action scenes are very well written---real page turners! I have already bought _Superbia 2_ and am about to start reading it right now.

Witty, gritty, and appallingly accurate.

This book is not for the faint of heart. If you are looking for romance don't buy this book. If you are looking for a strong dose of reality expressed as fiction and you like intense police drama... this book is for you.

Life for a real policeman as I've never read it before. The author is a real police officer and has been for long enough to share his lifestyle in this piece of fiction. I do not know how much of this is factual in his life, but I do feel it is factual in some unfortunate's life.

I stayed up until almost 4am this morning to finish reading this book. After having read through the first two chapters the chill I felt was greater than the blowing snow outside. I have known different law enforcement personnel... nuts. That sounds so sterile, obtuse, and distant. These are real people. Our families, friends, and neighbors who have answered to a higher calling; that of serving and protecting the rest of us from the rest of us as needed. And, they risk their lives, physically, mentally, emotionally... for what? To keep our society from coming completely unglued.

Sorry... did not mean to get on the soapbox but I have the highest regard for the police and all who put themselves on the line for another... even if I don't particularly like some I've met, I will not disrespect them.

This story, this book, elicits such a deep gutteral response within me. If you want to crawl into the skin of a real cop, a real hero... with all of the bruises, faults, and secret sins of any and every human being, then get this book and read it.

I give it and its author, my highest recommendation.

This is not a paid review. Although I am familiar with the author... I have most of his books, I swear to you I am being heartfully honest. I love reading thrillers, horror, fantasy... and biographies. This reads like I was sitting down with these cops like I used to do. Fiction or not, it reads like a biography. It should be made into an R-Rated movie.

Thanks Bernie for creeping me out for real. Keep up the superb work.

Superbia is the best book that Schaffer has written so far, by a mile. Don't get me wrong, his genre efforts are fantastic, and great fun to read. I loved Whitechapel, and The Guns of Seneca 6... but Superbia takes top spot for me.
I read it in less than 24 hours. I'm quite a slow reader at times, or I can be, but there was something about Superbia that made it stick in my head. It wouldn't leave me. I literally couldn't put the book down.
Primarily it's the story of Frank and Vic, two cops who are thrown together as partners. They have different approaches to their work, however they are both grounded in the same ideals of fatherhood and their mutual disgust of those who bring harm to children. They're both Fathers who love their children. Frank seems to be in a stable relationship, whereas Vic's has gone down the toilet, with his children being used as weapons by his ex-wife.
Superbia is brutal in places, and you get the distinct impression that so much of it has a truthful element to it. It's a case of 'you couldn't really make this up'. The idea of reading a fictionalised account of events that may have happened in real life is a major draw to keep reading through it, as you find yourself wanting to know what happened next. In this respect I didn't want the book to end. I wanted it to keep on going. However that's not to say that it reached a naturally fulfilling conclusion; I'm merely saying that it is so well written, and so honest in its subject matter, that I didn't want the experience to end.
I was going to list my favourite scenes here in this review, but you have to go into the book cold. You have to be open to the experience.
Also something should be said here about Schaffer's sense of humour. It really comes through in Superbia, although it is present in his other work. Strangely, for an American, he has a very British sense of humour. I found myself chuckling along quite a few times. The pitter-patter between Frank and Vic, especially early on, was fantastically written.
Superbia is dark and funny. It is honest. It is literally, as someone elsewhere has said of Schaffer, a 'cop bearing his soul'.
He says this could be the book that ends his policing career. I say let it. Don't worry.
I implore you to read this book. If you liked Whitechapel or Guns of Seneca 6, then you're going to love this book. If you haven't read either of those two, why not start here? It truly is his best book to date.
I don't know how he's going to top it... but the funny thing is, I know he will.
Schaffer isn't a writer to watch. He's not an up and coming star. HE IS THE REAL DEAL.
It's about time you acquainted yourself with him.

This was certainly not what I was expecting, but it was worth the read. This is suppose to be a view into the job of a police officer. At times you are cheering them on and at other times you're hoping that none of this is real. Sometimes you laugh and sometimes you want to cry. But through it all you'll keep turning the pages

The author is a policeman, and has managed to bring an underlying sense of "this is how it is" to this story.
Following two cops forced to pair up together while one recovers from a traumatic shooting, this story made me laugh, gasp, and at the end just about broke my heart.
Schaffer shows the human heart of police work, far removed from the gloss of CSI's pretty people and makes you care about them.
Warning :Strong language and some nasty details for the sensitive souls out there.

Recommended for : everyone who wants a good, hard look at police life without the sparkly bits.

Schaffer hits another one out of the stadium. As the chaplain of a large township public safety department near Detroit, I have experienced some of the pathos revealed here. The characters are too believeable and the story too real. Excellent work of "fiction".