Corruption in Hynes' sight
Prosectuor throws the book at crooked cops in 'Triple Homicide'
Posted Monday, June 4th 2007, 4:00 AM
Brooklyn DA Hynes (here on Flatbush Ave.) used his real-life experiences to write his first novel.
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes says he'll never forget the night when, as a special prosecutor in a police corruption case, he broke a dirty cop on the fifth floor of the Rackets Bureau.
"He was rear-cuffed and I watched his weeping wife, who was nine months pregnant, running across the floor," Hynes says. "It was heartbreaking.
"I could never do what a cop does. I'm in awe of them," Hynes adds. "But when they cross the line, here's what happens: handcuffs, going to prison, and the sobbing, pregnant wife going home to the other kids to make a life amid the shame and the loss. She'd probably lose her house. She'd have to live without a husband. The kids without a father. They'd have to change schools. Face taunting friends.
"The sheer human destruction and debasement - personal and collateral - is just overwhelming."
Hynes says he knew then that someday he would need to write a novel to explore all the pathologies and ramifications of police corruption.
"I wanted to write a book so that if some young cop picked it up, it would just chill him and make him realize that crossing the line, betraying the badge, is just never worth it," says Hynes, whose first novel, "Triple Homicide," hits bookstores on June 11.
"I had seen too many cops in handcuffs, but I never got around to writing it until I heard about these two murdered guys in Suffolk County," he says.
"The shell casings found at the homicide scene were .38 police specials, and there were suspicions that city cops might have done it."
That was the second tent pole of the novel forming in Hynes' head.
"Then I thought what kind of catastrophic consequence could visit two honest cops - an uncle and his nephew - who get involved in fighting corruption and run up against the blue wall of silence."
Hynes started the book in 1992, working on it at night and on weekends. He wrote it in longhand on the yellow legal pads of his profession, sometimes rising from bed in the middle of the night to work on a scene.
All the law enforcement procedures, family pathos and colorful idioms of his years working as a prosecutor - surrounded by cops, criminals, lawyers and judges - poured onto the pages.
"I wanted to get inside the brains of cops who cross the line," says Hynes,who shows how even the good cops get cemented into the blue wall of silence.
"It's a mind-set where even if you're clean, you never turn someone in."
Hynes has won early raves from Kirkus Reviews and Library Journal, and strong interest from producer Mace Neufeld for the movie rights.
(I read "Triple Homicide" in manuscript last year and was impressed enough to cough up a blurb.)
"I wrote 'Triple Homicide' in about three years, and I spent the next 10 years trying to get a publisher interested," says Hynes.
He's busy writing a sequel. "Not surprisingly, it's about political corruption."
Dirty Brooklyn judges, anyone? u'Betraying the badge is just never worth it.'