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In The Beat Of The Night

By ElvisNews.com / Kees, June 01, 2007 | Book
This book, which until now we only mentioned because the release date was postponed, tells the story of police men who had one or more – brief – encounters with Elvis.

Design

The book is a labour of love. You can see the author went through a lot of trouble for his project. Digging up stories and images. The only minor in the design department are the cartoons which illustrate several stories; why use a seventies style Elvis to illustrate a story that took place in the fifties?

Content

Elvis and the police, most fans know the link. After a short (one page) introduction on why Elvis had a soft spot for the police, this book tells the story of many policemen who encountered Elvis. The stories are told from their point of view. Most stories are funny, servicemen who unexpectedly met Elvis or who provided security services for our man.
The stories vary from policemen who thought they were stopping a thieve in the middle of the night, ending up almost shooting Elvis doing some shopping in the quiet hours to people who fed carrots to Elvis horses on Sunday morning, with Elvis coming out to check who’s feeding his cattle.

There is one problem reading this book, it contains (sweet) memories and anecdotes, no facts. This makes it hard to place or believe all the stories of Elvis’ police buddies, despite the subtitle “TRUE stories of Elvis and his police buddies”. But policemen don't lie now do they? :-)

Conclusion

The book was kind of funny to read, it tells some anecdotes and doing so it paints a picture of Memphis from the fifties through the seventies. But if everything happened the way it is remembered...?

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Ruthie wrote on June 05, 2007
I can hardly wait to read this book! It sounds very entertaining - for once. Despite the reviewer having a hard time reading it because of the sentimental & sweet memories & anecdotes, most of us will enjoy it. If we want dirt & sensationalism (supposedly based on facts) we can read all the other stuff out there.
2kisses&3scarfs wrote on June 09, 2007
This is a great little book! I've read over 200 books about Elvis, and it's refreshing to hear stories told by people who knew him but were not part of the "inner circle" and Memhis Mafia. Some of these stories made me smile and a few made me cry, but all of them were completely new to me. This is a very enjoyable read, and it's reasonably priced.
Ruthie wrote on June 25, 2007
It would be so helpful if you can provide the name of the author(s) when reviewing a book. Why go to the trouble of a review & leave out the author's name. I am having a hard time finding this book because I don't have the author's name. The picture on the cover doesnt come through well enough to read the title or author.