The Direct Entry Scheme was a controversial new programme devised to tackle a recruitment crisis in the force. Jess McDonald was one of a hundred of the first rookies to go through an intense twenty-week training course, bypass time in uniform and fly solo as a detective investigating serious crime. In Jess’s incisive, original and eye-opening memoir she takes us from bizarre training rituals to harrowing encounters with the perpetrators and victims of violent crime against women and girls, exploring what it really means to be responsible for ‘keeping London safe for everyone’. We see the immense pressure she is put under as she struggles to adapt to her extraordinary new circumstances – and weighs up whether she, or any of the other Direct Entry detectives – can survive in the force as it is.