I only learned about ex-cop Roger Rogerson when the murder of Jamie Gao hit the news in 2014. I remember being astounded to see the CCTV footage of Rogerson and another ex-copper (Glen McNamara) disposing of Jamie Gao's body and wondering how this could have happened. How could two Australian Policemen become killers, and how could they be so stupid as to be caught on CCTV?

I picked up Roger Rogerson by Duncan McNab in an attempt to understand these questions and my curiosity has now been satisfied.

Duncan McNab is a former police detective and private investigator and he utilises these skills to give the reader a summary of Rogerson's colourful career, including his time in the police force, his criminal activity and jail time leading up to the murder of Jamie Gao.

Plenty of cops - and criminals - are mentioned throughout, and several criminal and court cases are included and outlined. As a reader only interested in the murder of Jamie Gao, the background was moderately interesting, but difficult to keep up with. Without knowing the various 'players' or anything about the NSW Police Force or alleged corruption within, I did feel bogged down at times.

My interest picked up again at the arrest for the murder of Jamie Gao and the content that followed. I was also interested in the relationship between Rogerson and McNamara and how these two teamed up.

However I felt the book was building towards the guilty verdict and because McNab himself rushed to the court to hear the verdict, his delivery of the verdict in the book is likewise delivered in a rush. This created a complete anti-climax and what should have been a 'hurrah' moment, instead fell flat.

Perhaps Roger Rogerson by Duncan McNab is better suited to readers who either served in the police force, worked in the legal system or conducted criminal activity in the last 30-40 years. Readers with a personal or connected interest in Roger Rogerson may get more out of reading this account than I was able to.

* Copy courtesy of Hachette Australia * ( )

Even if you've only had a very fleeting interest in the goings on of one of Australia's most (in)famous cops, then ROGER ROGERSON is going to be an extremely intriguing read. Whilst it's the story of the man, and the myth that developed around him, it's also an important reminder of how that sort of myth building can skew law, order and society behaviour. For all the "bit of a rogue / hail fellow well met" persona that Rogerson built around himself, he shouldn't be a bit of a celebrity, or a figure of gentle affection for anybody and this book shows you exactly why.

McNab provides valuable insight into Rogerson's background, and that of his fellow-accused Glen McNamara, as an insider who knew all about them from his own days in the NSW Police Force, to contacts within the force and in the general community, and as an observer of the force from the point of a view of a journalist for many years. This is not just the story of the murder trial, it provides past and present angles that reader's may not necessarily have been given the opportunity to consider before. Particularly that of the Internal Affairs department, on whose desks various allegations against Rogerson have appeared over the years.

McNab is definitely no fan of Rogerson - and not just because he was directly threatened by the man when his first book on Rogerson (DODGER) was released. But he's not alone there, and the external persona that Rogerson was fond of portraying - the twinkle in the eye, the smiling, hearty bloke / one of the people façade is something that quite a few people had seen through a long time ago, alas with not quite enough evidence to be able to prove many of the allegations made. It also feels very much like McNab is scrupulously fair with his retelling of facts, and sometimes understandably acerbic in his observations. There was never any doubt in this readers mind about which was which.

The book ROGER ROGERSON also answered a heap of questions that were in this reader's mind when the charge of murder was first announced. It was hard to believe that somebody as wily and cunning as Rogerson would have been so easily caught out in such a murder. It was even harder to believe that McNamara - who spent years styling himself as a crusading ex-cop, committed to exposing paedophilia, virulently anti-drugs was somehow involved in a drug deal gone wrong. Stories of his researching a book seemed thin to say the least, but the gobsmacking bit was his hero-worship of Rogerson and the ease with which they seemed to have been identified as potential suspects in this crime. It seems that Rogerson might have been a handful in his day, but technology and conceit combined to make the untouchable very vulnerable.

This is a book that provides a lot of valuable and telling insights. Into corruption and how easily it can become entrenched. How backgrounds and stories can be built by individuals, and conflated by others for their own ends (there's a piece of political expediency here that should not have come as a particular surprise, but was still nonetheless startling). It's also a telling take on "celebrity crime" - criminals who are urban legends, or in this case, a corrupt and very dodgy cop who built himself into an urban legend, allowing everybody to conveniently ignore the damage and carnage left in his wake.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-roger-rogerson-duncan-mcnab ( )