Being a cop isn't easy, but the men and women of the Gotham City Police Department have it tougher than most. This is a town where the most routine call can leave an officer facing a crazy cold blooded scientist with his own freeze ray, or they may be targeted by a murderous former district attorney desperately in need of some plastic surgery. You know things are out of control when the cop's best weapon is a psychologically scarred vigilante who dresses like a bat. 
 It seemed like an interesting idea to do a book from the point of view of the GCPD's Major Crimes Unit, but I thought that this might be an idea only worthy of a story, not an entire series. I was wrong about that in a big way. 
 In the hands of Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka it's already obvious that there's a wealth of untold Gotham stories about a group of cops just trying to do their jobs in the face of batshit (Get it?) craziness. 
 For example, the first story centers on the horrible death of a detective at the hands of Mr. Freeze. Usually in a bat comic, we'd get the brutal murder and maybe a little bit of the department's anger and fear as a subplot while Batman goes after him. By focusing on the crime's impact to the cops, it turns what could be a typical comic book beginning into a tragedy that makes you see the GCPD as more than just cannon fodder that routinely gets caught in the crossfire between Batman and his enemies. 
 I also liked the way that the cops have a love/hate thing with Batman because they recognize that they need him to deal with these threats, but there's an undertone of anger that he may be causing half of their problems by inspiring super villains as well as resentment at the way that he's taken it on himself to do their job. 
 In addition to the Mr. Freeze plot, there's a mystery to solve as the detectives look into the murder of a teenage girl and deal with a costumed firebug. The final story that revolves around a closeted lesbian cop being outed as part of a scheme to destroy her life is an exceptionally heartbreaking piece of writing that I will be using in the future to refute anyone who wants to sneer at me for reading funny books. 
 Terrific concept and great story telling make this a must read for fans who will see a side of Gotham City that we never have before in the Batman titles.