Duty

After starting life as a hardscrabble youth in Italy, Julian Fantino emigrated to Canada and began the slow, difficult rise from poverty to a controversial tenure as Toronto’s chief of police, where he oversaw 5,200 officers and more than 2,000 civilian employees.Duty,his frank autobiography, is also a powerful contemporary portrait of the most socially, culturally, and ethnically diverse city in North America. Fantino pulls no punches in describing the challenges he faced — racial conflicts in an increasingly “mosaic” city, rising crime rates and street violence, endless budget battles with city hall, the threat of terrorism, rank-and-file corruption, political vendettas, an often hostile media, and his own contentious dismissal. Fantino’s vivid account of a city teetering on the edge of implosion, and his riveting narration of his own precarious balancing act as he tries to maintain his integrity against seemingly unstoppable forces, makeDutya striking memoir.