In 1935, the Spokane police regularly extorted sex, food, and money from
the reluctant hobos (many of them displaced farmers who had fled the
midwestern dust bowls), robbed dairies, and engaged in all manner of
nefarious crimes, including murder. This history was suppressed until
1989, when former logger, Vietnam vet, and Spokane cop Tony Bamonte
discovered a strange 1955 deathbed confession while researching a thesis
on local law enforcement history. Bamonte began to probe what had every
appearance of widespread police crime and a massive cover-up whose
highlight was the unsolved murder of Town Marshall George Conff. The
fact that many of those involved, now in their 80s and 90s, were still
alive made it imperative that Bamonte unravel this mystery. The result
is Breaking Blue, a white-knuckle ride through institutional corruption
and cover-up that vividly documents Depression-era Spokane and an
extraordinary case that few believed would ever be brought to light.