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Julian Fantino's Duty:
Finding a Missing Person

Julian Fantino, former Toronto Police Chief, currently head of the OPP, has a fascinating life story. Unfortunately one wouldn't know it from reading his autobiography Duty. The book fails by trying to be three different biographies at once: the life stories of Julian Fantino, Michael Sweet and Craig Munro.

The threesome were connected on March 14, 1980 when Munro and his younger brother Jamie, botched a robbery at a Queen Street West tavern in Toronto. During the crime Officer Michael Sweet was shot and would succumb to his injuries thanks to the Munro brothers cruelly holding him hostage while he lay bleeding from gunshot wounds. Julian Fantino and David Boothby were the detectives assigned to investigate the murder.

Sweet's tragic death at an early age is told and retold constantly throughout Duty. Poignantly the 30-year old begged for his life mentioning his three little girls to his murderers. This is one of the earliest failings of Fantino's autobiography. By the time the words are delivered by Sweet the impact is gone with the overuse of the information. There are at least 10 times in Duty where Fantino refers to the three little girls, limiting the impact in what should be shocking, but it's not by the time Fantino lets Sweet disclose this to us as he pleads with his killers.

Julian Fantino readily admits his goal: making certain that Craig Munro never gets parole. He is angry that Jamie was paroled and lives an unfettered life in Italy thanks to some bureaucratic loopholes allowing him to emigrate and never face a parole officer or any restrictions. An unnecessary chapter agonizingly details every crime Craig Munro committed before and after the murder of Officer Sweet and the unsatisfactory sentences. This section is a drier read than police press releases.  It's to the point one wonders if Fantino would have a problem whenever Craig Munro sneezes and would include DNA evidence from collected tissues in Duty.

By allowing his hatred for Munro to take over his autobiography Julian Fantino doesn't have the chance to discuss the Queen's Park Riot, Operation True Blue, Otto Vass, the aftermath of the Jane Doe lawsuit, (Toronto Police Services Procedure 05-05) all of which are conspicuously absent. Duty settles old scores with the media, politicians and Fantino's many detractors. If that weren't enough, along with the 3 bios, it advocates his political positions. Fantino is used to multi-tasking and brings that skill set to his life story, trying to do far too much in a few hundred pages.

Fantino has an issue with the media for failing to do their homework and he makes up for it in spades in Duty. No one will accuse him of inaccuracy with his attention to detail but it can be and is taken too far. One of the funniest moments in Duty occurs in this section. Apparently one media outlet published Fantino's home address including a map. Ironic certainly after all the police publish criminals' addresses, amusing (well it didn't happen to us) and absolutely wrong.

The best parts of Duty occur when Fantino focuses on his life story, for example immigrating to Canada as a child, not speaking the language, his struggles in school, bullying, his introduction to the police force and so on. These chapters provide the saving grace for the book but they are in short supply. Ultimately the problems with Duty aren't Fantino's fault. The writer, Jerry Amernic,  fails Fantino by refusing to parse the subject matter. The story jumps back and forth with Craig Munro and his brother constantly forcing their way into the narrative. Amernic lost control early on and never regained it. That's why what should be a fascinating story fizzles fast.

Allegedly the book is in an 'as told to' style or so it erroneously says in the publicity machine. That isn't the format. Saying so is not a viable excuse for Amernic's shortcomings as a writer and fear of alienating Fantino with a few home truths. He ought to know that Fantino wouldn't have complained if Amernic had made him sound better. And the best example of this failure is here. And Amernic makes the same error throughout the book sometimes twice in the same paragraph. Annoying to read wasn't it, starting a sentence with the word 'and'. Perhaps it is Fantino's speech pattern, nevertheless it detracts from his story. What is more important in an autobiography, painstaking accuracy to the nth degree or creating interest?

Earlier this review pointed out Fantino makes 10 unnecessary references to Sweet's three little girls. That says it all, it is overkill to include the page numbers or point out it happens twice on one page. Had Fantino done more with their story, and thank goodness he didn't there are enough biographies in this book already, that might make some sense but it is used to solely to emphasize the tragedy of Sweet's death. It is a tool meant to draw our ire at his killers. It's unnecessary the Munro brothers taunted a dying man and prevented his rescue if Sweet hadn't been a father this crime would not be any less abhorrent.

Duty has all the elements of a great autobiography. Certainly Fantino can't be blamed for the traditional underlying theme of any self-serving piece, 'I was right and everyone else was wrong'. That doesn't negate the best parts of the book when it focuses on Fantino and his life. Clean up the grammar, save the obsession with Craig Munro for another book and start by finding the missing person: a competent book editor. At some point Duty will be released in paperback, so there is the opportunity to get it right the second time around.