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There is more to Louisiana than New Orleans. If you have the time and inclination, you can take I-10 East out of New Orleans (leave early, before 6:30 a.m. if you can) and drive for approximately 60 miles along a highway where swamp foliage seems to strain at the bit to encroach the macadam. You'll eventually see an outlet mall on your left and, a few miles further away, a water park on your right. You'll know that you're on the eastern border of Baton Rouge, the state capital of Louisiana. There is a bit of self-conscious resentment toward its brassier, better-known sister, but the people who live in Baton Rouge tend to love the city.
Laurie Lynn Drummond is a rare Baton Rouge expatriate; born in Virginia, Laurie was a uniformed officer with the Baton Rouge Police Department and is now an assistant professor at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas. ANYTHING YOU SAY CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU is Drummond's first work, a collection of short fiction concerning female police officers on the Baton Rouge Force. It is a noteworthy collection, both for what it is and for what it isn't.
Her stories are not police procedurals nor are they detective stories. The focus is on people --- the officers and the victims. The ten stories are divided among five police officers --- Katherine, Liz, Mona, Cathy and Sara --- who are at various stages in their careers and dealing with the difficulties of the job and their outside lives. The stories are purportedly fiction, but there is a documentary feel to most of them. There is really only one, "Keeping The Dead Alive," that reads like a work of fiction, though I would not be surprised if it was an accurate account of an actual event. It is, coincidentally, the best story in the book and runs on twin tracks. One is the investigation of the brutal murder of Jeanette Durham, apparently by her husband. The other concerns the clandestine memorial services held by a small group of female police officers to remember women who are victims of violent crimes. The memorial to Durham goes suddenly and violently wrong, and the officers are faced with the choice of going by the book and jeopardizing their careers, or extracting a rough but righteous justice on their own. This is a haunting tale, worth the price of admission all by itself; I will never drive by the Pearl River exit off of I-59 by the Louisiana-Mississippi border again without thinking of this story.
The other stories in this work are memorable in different ways. "Under Control" is one of Mona's stories, an electrifying account of a police response that plays out a family drama on two different levels. "Katherine's Elegy" concerns a veteran, almost legendary, police officer who uses leads by example but who also uses her sensuality with a strange and somewhat sinister twist. "Finding a Place" deals with a retired officer who is no longer of the world of law enforcement and is experiencing an uneasy adjustment to civilian life. And "Cleaning Your Gun" relates the story of an officer who is bringing the strain and pressure of her job home --- with adverse results.
ANYTHING YOU SAY CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU will certainly be of interest to fans of crime fiction --- though neat and tidy endings to these stories are hardly the rule --- and some do not deal with crimes at all, but are, rather, character studies. Those readers interested in character studies, particularly women's issues, will find this collection worthwhile, with the caveat that the descriptions of violence and its aftermath can be unsettling. The blurring of genres is, however, commendable. And I'm certain that Drummond has many more dark stories to tell.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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