Not for the faint-hearted - John Stevens

In this absorbing and controversial memoir, John Stevens records highlights of his meteoric career, from walking the beat as a constable on London's Tottenham Court Road during the 1960s to the summit of his profession as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. As a junior detective he achieved so many arrests he became known as 'Swifty Stevens'. As Deputy Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire he began the first of his three inquiries into collusion between the security forces and paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. One of his most striking successes was in the car-crime capital of Europe - Newcastle - where he achieved the most spectacular reduction in crime ever known in Britain. In 2000, when he was appointed Commissioner, London's police force was in a poor way, understrength and weakened by low morale. Five years later, and despite political wranglings, his leadership had restored the force to its best-ever state.