Shattered Lives

A brutal murder, a cop on edge

 

Peter Seymour and Jason K Foster

Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2023

Paperback ‎     280pp     RRP: $32.99

 

Reviewer: Neville Taylor, January 2024

 

Detective Peter Seymour had spent years in Homicide before moving into the NSW Coroner’s Court. After eight years there, the images he has previously exposed to over the years and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) manifests itself as images involving his own children.

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Deciding to leave the Coroner’s Court, he goes back to normal policing. Unfortunately his first major investigation is one involving a thoughtless cowardly attack that leaves the victim dead, and his demons continue to pursue him. This autobiography reveals the strategies of his coping with mixed success in living with his PTSD. He has promised the victim’s wife that he will bring the culprits to pay for their crime, and with a paucity of clues available to track down the killers, the work pressure grows even further.

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Once the culprits have been found, there exists the problem and pressure of accumulating sufficient evidence to enable a conviction. One of the assailants is jailed, the other goes to court where he is found not guilty. This is all too much for Seymour and he ultimately resigns from the NSW Police Force.

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An interesting account of the manifestation of PTSD and the manner in which the sufferer continued to work in a diminishingly safe environment despite all the support from his superiors, colleagues and family.

 

 

 

The RUSI – Vic Library thanks the publisher for making this work available for review.