I was expecting a guns'n'glory police procedural set on the mean streets of Queens all wise-cracking action peopled with cops with hearts of gold. Instead I got a portrait of a young woman trying to make sense of her life. I was transported to the world of Janice Itwaru. Janice lives with her mother, who has early onset dementia. Her sister drops in and out of her life, causing havoc. She is estranged from her father, a recovering alcoholic who once beat her mother so badly she was hospitalised. From an early age, Janice wanted to be a spy. Now she works for NYPD Narcotics as an undercover cop, an Uncle. The book charts the last month of her contract, before her fabled elevation to Detective. I found it very revealing about the discrimination against non-white police, against women, both of which are treated as matter of fact by everyone in the 115 Narcotics team. It was also an unglamorous portrayal of life as an undercover officer, and riveting as a result. Alongside the grind of her working life, we're given an insight into Janice's personal life. I wanted to be her friend, make her a cup of tea, sit her down and work out how we could make things better. I think she needed a friend. Someone who wasn't a colleague. Matt Burgess portrays life in Queens with an affectionate honesty, and describes his characters with a quiet skill. ( )

This story was middle of the road and has been reviewed by other reviewers below. As such, I've chosen to review the audiobook version that I listened to. I enjoyed the narrator's performance very much when it was just descriptive. Her accents, however, were very odd. The only one that sounded authentic was a very short passage by a Caribbean woman. Janice and her mother and father had accents that were impossible to place. Janice's may have had some authentic NY to it though I couldn't really place it as one I had heard before. Her mother (as far as I could glean a white American) sounded Russian and her father (from Guyana) was completely unrecognizable. This impaired my enjoyment of the story. ( )

Janice Itwaru is an undercover cop (or "uncle") in Queens. While Janice works toward her detective badge, the pressure increases both at home and at work. Burgess effectively conveys the humor and frustrations of the undercover cop’s life as the story veers between gripping drama to comedy. The narrator for this audiobook was well chosen, making this an enjoyable listen. ( )

I liked the min character, a new police woman whose goal in life is to become a detective. She is a minority and a woman so she is constantly harangued by her peers but stands up to almost all of it with dignity and fortitude. But I felt the storyline lacked, it was hard to stick with it to the end,. I didn't like the other characters and so I had nothing much invested in the story. Also the bits of humor tried to hard. I did finish it and the conclusion was satisfactory. I would like to see a sequel better developed. ( )

I received the audiobook of Uncle Janice from the Librarything Early Reviewer program. It is the story of Janice Itwaro, an undercover narcotics agent. The first half of the novel was not particularly exciting - it followed Janice in her day to day work, with no apparent plot. By the second half of the story however, suspense began to build. Janice was involved in some illegal activities and Internal Affairs became involved. Unfortunately, on the sixth CD out of eight, the quality of the recording faltered, and the track that promised to be the most entertaining didn't work at all. It happened again on the seventh CD and again on the eighth, essentially eliminating the climax of the book. I have to say that I don't feel compelled to get a replacement copy because the characters and the story just didn't interest me enough. ( )