Writer-Cops by James O. Born (Web Mystery Magazine, Spring 2005)

Writer Cops

In the late 1980’s, as a DEA agent sitting on surveillance for hours on end without anything happening, I started to read everything I could get my hands on. I found that I didn’t like to read police stories ... it wasn’t that I was tired of police work; no, I couldn't read police stories because when someone got something wrong in a book, it was hard for me to continue. In my police career I had never twisted a gun out of a maniac’s hand or seen fear in someone’s eyes. I lived in a world where I was worried about losing a tooth in a fight and getting home to my family at night. It was hard to read about super-smart cops who traveled the world on some unknown bank account.

That’s why I started writing. It took fifteen years of rejection before I sold a novel but I’ve always tried to stay true to the underlying principles of the physics of police work. If a guy is punched, he gets a black eye. He doesn’t shake his head once and feel fine. In police work, nothing is predictable — from a serious looking wound being minor to the reverse. And nothing is complicated: a crook is a crook.

In my novels Walking Money and Shock Wave, I put an ordinary cop in an extraordinary situation. The daily life of my main character, Bill Tasker, is more interesting than the average real-life cop because — face it, if it weren’t, no one would want to read the story.

As a working cop here in Florida I like seeing accurate detail, not something a writer learned on Law and Order or CSI. A good story is much more important than perfect detail, but the little things can add up to turn off a realism junkie. Clichés like “stop in the name of the law” or “you only get one phone call” still make me laugh. Anyway, I’ve been reading cops who are writers. This is a partial list of some of the best writer-cops:

Joseph Wambaugh, king and original police writer. His non-fiction works The Onion Field and The Fire Lover are classics. His fiction — The New Centurions, The Choir Boys, and The Glitter Dome — is compelling and often funny.

Ed Dee. The Con Man’s Daughter is a great story about an ex-cop going outside normal tactics to recover his kidnapped daughter. Dee is a writer who makes you feel like you know the NYPD.

John Westermann. Exit Wounds, a good old fashioned lone good-cop story. Forget the movie. Westermann's background as a cop has given him keen insight.

Paul Bishop. Chalk Whispers, the fourth novel in his Fey Croaker series. This L.A. cop captures the life of a detective well.

Cherokee Paul MacDonald. Blue Truth and Under Contract: The True Account of a Cop Hired to Kill are two excellent non-fiction books about his life as a cop in Ft. Lauderdale.

Michael Black. Windy City Nights. Even though his character, Ron Shade, is a private detective, Black’s background as a cop and in the martial arts give this story a nice edge with excellent detail.

Robin Burcell, a retired cop from California and two-time winner of the Anthony for best original paperback. Cold Case is the most recent book in the Kate Gillespie series. The forensic detail here sets it off.

Gina Gallo. Armed and Dangerous: Memoirs of a Chicago Policewoman is a non-fiction book about the life of a female Chicago cop. This will grab you and give you an idea of real police work.

Patrick Picciarelli, a retired lieutenant with the NYPD. My Life in the NYPD: Jimmy the Wags is the story of a cop’s experiences in New York in the 70’s and 80’s. Very entertaining.

Bob Leuci, former NYPD narcotics detective, was the subject of the Robert Daley bestseller, Prince of the City. Leuci has a recent non-fiction account of his years at NYPD, All The Centurions. It is excellent.

Chuck Hustmyre, a retired Federal Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agent. Killer With A Badge, about a New Orleans police officer: very compelling.

These writers all know what they are talking about: they've been there.