''Undercover was like guerrilla warfare; to understand your enemy, you had to walk amongst them, to become them. The trick was to keep an eye on that important line between who you were and who you were pretending to be.'
'This is the true story of Keith Banks, one of Queensland's most decorated police officers, and his journey into the world of drugs as an undercover operative in the 1980s. In an era of corruption, often alone and with no backup, he and other undercover cops quickly learned to blend into the drug scene, smoking dope and drinking with targets, buying drugs and then having dealers arrested. Very quickly, the lines between his identity as a police officer and the life he pretended to be part of became blurred.
'This is a raw and confronting story of undercover cops who all became casualties of that era, some more than others, when not everyone with a badge could be trusted.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Gun to the Head : My Life as a Tactical Cop. The Impact. The Aftermath.
Crows Nest
:
Allen and Unwin
,
2021
21516611
2021
single work
autobiography
'From the bestselling author of Drugs, Guns & Lies, comes Keith's story of what it was really like to be a tactical police officer in the violent and corrupt eighties
''Banks has told his story in a raw and honest autobiography. It is the best true crime book published in Australia in a decade.' - John Silvester, Crime Reporter for The Age on Drugs, Guns and Lies
'Keith Banks was a member of the Queensland Police Force when not everyone with a badge could be trusted.
'After serving as an undercover cop and declining an opportunity to participate in a lucrative and totally corrupt enterprise, Keith found himself sidelined from the Drug Squad. In 1984 he was transferred to the Taringa Criminal Investigation Branch as a Detective Senior Constable. That had its moments, but he wanted more. He missed the adrenaline charge of his days as an undercover cop. He discovered that rush again when, ultimately, he became one of the first fulltime members of the Tactical Response Group.
'It was challenging and dangerous work. He not only found himself facing off against some of Australia's most brutal criminals, but he also had to confront the demons of constantly living on the edge, of finding that fine line between good and bad where violence was normal.
'Raw and confronting, Gun to the Head exposes a world of policing that few have lived.' (Publication summary)
