Review: Little Victim by Harry Keeble and Kris Hollington (2010, UK)

Little Victim is Harry Keeble’s second book with co-author Kris Hollington and goes into extended detail following on from Baby X, his first book which described his transfer from the London Metropolitan Police Drugs Squad into Child Protection.

Being the second book, Keeble goes into detail on a handful of individual cases over the course of a year. This gives a wider idea of the unit’s inner workings and the unpredictable day-to-day workload his unit could encounter. In an extreme example, that included the pursuit of either witnesses or suspects abroad at a moment’s notice. It also illustrates how the falsely accused can also become victims, a fact often forgotten. Simple neglect all the way up to serious CSA are all covered along with the false allegation case, and Keeble makes no apologies in stating what would make the life of police and social services easier in providing good frontline child protection and mentions feedback from all concerned to his first book.

Little Victim is another absorbing book which you can speed-read or take your time over the procedural sections. You’re getting the cop’s eye view here but his assertion that cases would never be forgotten is a platitude and an unrealistic one – looking at his workload over just the one year, added to the cases that probably didn’t make the book, and Keeble is human and clearly too busy – though he is big enough to accept all viewpoints on his books.

That one annoyance aside, this is an excellent book and we’ll review Baby X as part of our general catchup at a later date.

– CBG