Paul F. Verhoeven - Electric Blue

Paul Verhoevens ex-cop dad, John, spent years embroiled in some of the seediest, scariest intrigue and escapades imaginable. One day John offered Paul the chance of a lifetime: hed spill his guts on tape. What unfolded in Loose Units was a goldmine of true-crime stories, showcasing Johns dramatic experience of policing in Sydney in the 1980s and brilliantly twisted sense of humour. But what happened next in Johns career was twice as weird.

Electric Blue spans the final years of Johns stint in the New South Wales Police Force, when he took up an offer to move into the grimy, analytical world of forensics. Paul unpicks his fathers most terrible cases. There was the rapist hiding in the walls of a shower block, a body that was quite literally cooked, and the bizarre copycat suicides.

But whats it actually like to have a hero for a dad? Paul delves into his unique fatherson relationship with John to find out exactly how they ended up so different from one another. Hell try and figure out how to live with the choices theyve both made... or wish theyd made. And Pauls mum, Christine, reveals what it was like to be a pioneering female cop in the eighties, when misogyny was rife in the force.

Thrilling, fascinating and unexpectedly laugh-out-loud funny, Electric Blue is another high-octane adventure in policing, integrity and learning what family is really all about.

Johns hands gripped the wheel. Blood soaked his shirt. The man writhing next to him screamed and groaned through his ruined face.

This, thought John, is shaping up to be a really shit day.

He checked the dash. Not because he needed to glean anything from the speedometer or the fuel gauge, but to distract himself. His friend, he was certain, was going to die. He wasnt ready to admit that just yet best not to admit defeat, even when its nuzzling up your leg but things werent looking good. The car was dancing below the speed limit, skirting the very edge of it, a warm hum pulsing as the engine threatened to overheat and gutter out entirely.

Another noise, this one more of a bloody burble, yanked John from his trance. Focus, he thought. Focus. Youre not far from the hospital. You can fix this. You can make this work. You can get the shit back into the horse, John. A confused, wet, garbled scream drew Johns eye. He looked over at his friend, doubled up, utterly soaked through with his own blood, clenched hands holding his face in place.

John flashed back, somewhat inappropriately, to himself as a child, holding stolen apples in his shirt and sneaking into his house round the back. Just as he was about to make it to his bedroom, the buttons popped and the shirt burst open, unable to bear the burden of his stolen goods. The apples tumbled forth. His dad yelled at him for an hour. Why am I remembering this? John thought in a daze, foot stamped down on the accelerator. Oh . He looks like hes about to let go, too. He cant carry any more.

They were, John realised, snapping back to the present, still a long way from the hospital. They were in the backstreets now, burning up and down long roads, coursing along winding avenues, and into the kind of dips and troughs you only really saw on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. We arent going to make it, John thought. Hes collapsing. Im going into shock. Im

And with a rather pleasant FLOOMP , the car mounted the gutter at high speed.

And everything went dark.

Theres blood everywhere. A murder has been carried out, and only I can solve it.

This, I think, is shaping up to be a really good book.

Im eleven. Im in a cavernous bookstore at Warringah Mall with my dad, John. Hes an ex-cop, and hes over by the thriller section, but before he wandered off to busy himself, he guided me to a shelf, this shelf right here. Then he reached up and handed me a book.

The book is called Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey? and, much like me, it weighs almost nothing. Im tall, and lean, and very bored. And Im sad. Im very sad, and I dont know why. Maybe Dad knows. Maybe thats why hes brought me shopping.

The book isnt a normal book, not like the one youre holding. Huge, delirious letters proclaim that its a Choose Your Own Adventure story. The cover is a brazen late-seventies-style mishmash of tropes: the sinister gardener lurking in the corner, the big-chinned hero detective floating up near the title. Its like a movie poster, I think to myself, turning it over in my hand. A movie poster on a book. What a world.

Dad is eyeing me from across the store. Hes wearing an expression one wears when hoping not to startle a deer. I open the book, that heady new-book smell reaching my nose almost instantly, and Im worried that after years of completely bouncing off the written word, this book will offer me nothing.

I have ADHD, you see. My brain just sort of wanders off after a few pages whenever I try to read. I enjoy the first few pages, the promise the books hold, but then I fear that the ADHD will take control yet again. ADHD: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Ever tried to wrestle with ADHD? Imagine your brain, your focus, your drive, your attention, as a plume of smoke. Got it? Thick, cloying, sweet smoke, swirling churlishly around your head.

Now, imagine someone standing in front of you. Theyre waving. You should probably wave back. There we go! Now youre both waving.

And whats that hes holding? A big glass bottle. Hes handing it to you. Hes... right, hes seen something shiny and run off after it. Just you and the bottle now, kid.

Now, do me a favour, would you? Try to get the smoke back into the bottle. No, Im serious. Thats what having ADHD is like.

Eleven-year-old me god, Im adorable looks up at Dad again. See how hopeful he is? He wants me to read the book, I can tell. He wants me to make an effort.

When I was a kid, my dad was a cop. Hes not a cop at this point, mind you, hes a firefighter. And as I stand there in the bookstore, walls of great works towering around me, and my dads great works practically wafting off him like a highway mirage, I wonder what it must be like for a person like him to have a kid like me. Because its bizarre growing up with a larger-than-life father, let me tell you. Dad spent years in General Duties, which just means he was a regular beat cop, in uniform, patrolling the streets and relentlessly pursuing leads. Then he headed to Forensics. You know, all the really gory stuff: corpses, fingerprints, trace evidence. Digging up bodies. Autopsies. Snappy one-liners. A weird career path, to be sure, but Dads a weird guy.

Hes walked over now, trying to act casual. So I humour him, and begin to lazily peruse the book he handed me. And there, right there, on the second page, is... wait.

A choice.

This book is going to let me choose. If my idiot brain wants to run away with itself and pursue leads, pursue what-ifs, run down forgotten alleyways, the book will actually encourage it. Unlike regular books and real life this story in my hands encourages do-overs. I look up at Dad, wonder in my eyes.

Is real police work like this? I ask, holding the tiny paperback aloft. Dad looks down at me, smiles a smile which, upon reflection, is a little too sad to burden a kid with and says, No, mate. If I made a mistake when I was a policeman... I had to live with it.