Conduct Unbecoming

by Mike Seabrook

Bright, idealistic, and a touch naive, 23-year-old Bob Chambers seems launched on a successful career in the Metropolitan Police. But one day he is assigned to the importuning squad, trusted with surveillance - and more - in public toilets. The drama that unfolds shows a complex conflict of loyalties, leading from Bob's operation as agent provocateur to unsuspected discoveries about his own sexuality and the inevitable conflict with his superiors. A former policeman himself, Mike Seabrook conveys a unique insider's view on one of the most insidious aspects of policing in Britain today. Like his first novel Unnatural Relations, here again is both a highly charged novel of intrigue and an important social document.

Genres: Gay, M M Romance

224 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1991

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this novel back in the 1990's. It was one of the very first Gay novels I read. Paperback. Years later I still remembered the powerful story-line and searched for the title time and again, to no avail. It seems the book is out of print and I reverted to Ebay and Amazon's second hand section....and found it!
Still a very powerful story but I didn't remember it being so oppressively depressing first-time-round and therefore DNF at around the three quarters mark.
Bob Chambers, a young and naïve copper is assigned to the importuning squad, undercover surveillance of public lavatories. His senior (police) partner persuades him to act as an agent provocateur in order to bring in more arrests. It is through this deceptive entrapment, that he realises he is in fact also gay.
The novel is written by an ex policeman according to the blurb and is most probably an accurate account of the importuning squads back in the 1980's and 90's. Thankfully, at least in Western Europe, we have moved on from such barbaric practices used to entrap gay men.
Powerful story, I couldn't finish this second reading....I remembered whilst reading how sad and depressed it made me feel first time round. Intense.

[JOSEPH OLIVER · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won't write anything detailed. I found the book very absorbing. I learned a lot about the internal workings of the police force in the 1980s anyway and how they used a low level of entrapment as a method of 'gay patrol'. The cast of characters is very real - some lovely, some twisted and others just not interested in any of the fallout from the main character's situation as long as it just goes away. Well worth reading. Ironically, seeing as the world in the West has moved on so much, this story may be more useful as an historical novel or an aid to anyone under 30 at how the police policed the homosexual community within the law at the time. It was written as a contemporary novel but how much things have changed. In certain European states at least.

[Derek Gover · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of a young 1960s/70s policeman who while on entrapment duty realises that he is gay. It follows his career and the problems he must face.

[Martyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a while I was thinking the book might earn itself five stars, but at the end of the day the central figure's character was just too flawed. I'd like to say he was flawed beyond belief, but sadly he does remind me of someone I know - which perhaps makes it a little painful. The fact that the novel is more realistic could be both a strength or a weakness depending on what you are looking for. It's not really a book to leave you with any feel-good factor. Bob might get his happy ending - temporarily, but you can't help feeling sorry for everyone around him with his compulsive attitude to lie and deceive which will end up hurting them all in the end.

This is the first Mike Seabrook book I've read and it's a favourable start. The fact that he doesn't appear to be gay himself might account for the lack of sex scenes in the book (which he skirts around) if he sought only to write about things which were more within his personal experience and he could write about with some knowledge - unless he just wanted to write a serious novel about homosexuality within the policing world without desiring it to be anything salacious, or without offending (or worrying) his wife.

There was nothing to set this novel in the past so I'm assuming it was meant to be reflective of life in the police (as regards their attitudes towards homosexuality) in and around 1991. My initial reaction was one of relief that I wasn't an adult at the time, that I was oblivious to what was going on and didn't have to live (as an adult) in such a world myself - and yet the more I think about it I wonder how much things really have changed in thirty-five years. Is it really so much easier to be out today than it was then?

[Brenda Cothern · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent self discovery coming out story! The character development was excellent for the main and sub-characters. The plot was fasted paced and kept me turning the pages.