Book recommendations?

[dogcaller]

Hi everyone! I’m not LEO but many of my friends are and I find it very interesting. Can you recommend any particular titles, or police/crime writers or who really do a good job? Definitely open to fiction or non-fiction. It’s a genre really I haven’t explored before. Thanks much!

[TheNewbie]

In the Non-fiction category:

Killing Pablo

At the Devil’s Table

El Narco

Sixty Miles of Border. This book makes me want to build a time machine so I can go back to the 70s and 80s in order to be a US Customs Agent. It’s a wild, fun and interesting read. Plus the author now owns a cigar shop in Arizona.



I like fiction, though not cop fiction , but I simply do not have time to read it. Currently I’m listening to one book and reading two others. There are probably 12 non fiction books that I own and need to read before I buy more.

[Coyotesfan97]

Hi everyone! I’m not LEO but many of my friends are and I find it very interesting. Can you recommend any particular titles, or police/crime writers or who really do a good job? Definitely open to fiction or non-fiction. It’s a genre really I haven’t explored before. Thanks much!

Joseph Waumbaugh! The New Centurions, The Blue Knight, and The Choirboys are highly recommended fiction. Delta Star is another good one. The Onion Field is non fiction and should be required reading at academies. Waumbaugh has written a ton of police books.

Texas Ranger: The Epic Life of Frank Hamer by John Boessenecker. Hamer is best known for tracking down Bonnie and Clyde.

Public Enemies by Bryan Burroughs. It about the creation of the FBI in response to the 1930s bank robbers.

The LawDog Files by Lawdog. Be ready to laugh!

Holloway’s Raiders about the Dallas PD shotgun squads by Captain ER Walt

[0331king]

Give A Boy A Gun By Jack Olsen, The True story of how a piece of trash murdered two Idaho Game Wardens, The man hunt and circle jerk circus of a trial.

FBI Miami Firefight By Ed Mireles, The most famous shooting in FBI history by the man that ended it. Highly recfommend this book! Ed is a national treasure and self published this book.

[Jason M]

Full disclosure: The first is written by a friend of mine.

Virtuous Policing by D. Bolgiano
https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2876113

In Defense of Self and Others by J. Hall & U. Patrick
https://cap-press.com/books/isbn/9781611636826/In-Defense-of-Self-and-Others-.-.-.-Third-Edition

Both are non-fiction

[BigD]

If you have any interest in NYC or NYPD, this is a good non-fiction read. I really enjoyed it.

Blue Blood by Edward Conlon


https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Blood-Edward-Conlon/dp/1573222666/ref=asc_df_1573222666/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312168414377&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17108914228971215275&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9007546&hvtargid=pla-569771068271&psc=1


A richly textured, anecdotal portrait of life as a police officer in the NYPD chronicles one man's life as a cop, from growing up with a police officer father and his education at Harvard, to his first day on the beat in the South Bronx and to his rise to detective, capturing the complex life on the street of the city, his law enforcement legacy, and the camaraderie of the force.

[AZgunguy]

Joseph Waumbaugh! The New Centurions, The Blue Knight, and The Choirboys are highly recommended fiction. Delta Star is another good one. The Onion Field is non fiction and should be required reading at academies. Waumbaugh has written a ton of police books.

Texas Ranger: The Epic Life of Frank Hamer by John Boessenecker. Hamer is best known for tracking down Bonnie and Clyde.

Public Enemies by Bryan Burroughs. It about the creation of the FBI in response to the 1930s bank robbers.

The LawDog Files by Lawdog. Be ready to laugh!

Holloway’s Raiders about the Dallas PD shotgun squads by Captain ER Walt

+1 on the Frank Hamer book as well as Joesph Wambaugh. Good reading there.

On the non fiction non cop side, there is Andrew Jackso and the Miracle of New Orleans is a good read as well. We should have never won that one. Also The Histry of Jhad by Robert Spencer is an eye opening read.

[whomever]

IANALeo

"The Real Police" by David Ziskin is an account of policing in Seattle's Skid Row. From a description "The author served during the last of the old era of street policing, and then through the period of greatest change". It's a lot of fascinating roll call stories, and one very thought provoking chapter on how police departments are run today. The cliff notes version of that is, to paraphrase "The patrol officers make every life and death decision the police force makes; the chief decides what color the uniforms are", and muses on how to better spread the knowledge of the best patrol cops over the force. Both sides of the book were fascinating to me.

"Boot" by William Dunn is an account of a rookie officer's first year with LAPD. It's a window into the wrong side of the tracks that will be eye opening for most suburbanites. Also a mix of serious things and the lighthearted. The story about the pointed shoe church ladies and the burglar has to be one of the best roll call stories ever. The last chapter, when he arrives at his first non-probationary precinct, is a bit disturbing.

I've seen "What Cops Know" by Connie Fletcher recommended by officers (including, I think, here on P-F) as a window into the job and the parts of society that the average law abiding type never sees. It was surely eye opening for me. I quickly learned that it wasn't, for me, bedtime reading, if I wanted to sleep that night. The other two books were mostly enjoyable reads; this one was frequently just disturbing but, I'm told, accurate. I persevered because I thought everyone should at least look through that window.

[Sixgun_Symphony]

Lots of good choices already posted... I'll add a few



Target Blue by Robert. Daley

Pure Cop by Connie Fletcher

Leading Cops in Turbulent Times by George Saadeh

Cop in the Hood by Peter Moskos

Newjack by Ted Conover

Memoirs Of A Public Servant by Charleston Hartfield

Street Warrior by Ralph Friedman



and a random military one... its just really good, had to add it to this cop list

Metamorphosis: Forging an Airborne Ranger by Stephen Trujillo https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=pQR6DwAAQBAJ&hl=en_US&pg=GBS.PP1

[Stephanie B]

“...officer down, code three” by Pierce Brooks. Long out of print, though.

[DMF13]

"Into The Kill Zone: Cops' Eye View Of Deadly Force," by David Klinger

"Black Mass: True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob," by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill (IMO, it should be required reading for any cop that works with informants, and/or supervises those who do.)

"Lines And Shadows," by Joseph Wambaugh

"Fire Lover," by Joseph Wambaugh

Every non-fiction Wambaugh book I've read has been excellent, but I've tried the fiction, and it's just not good enough to justify the time.

For fiction check out "LA Confidential," by James Ellroy

[Erick Gelhaus]

Full disclosure: The first is written by a friend of mine.

In Defense of Self and Others by J. Hall & U. Patrick
https://cap-press.com/books/isbn/9781611636826/In-Defense-of-Self-and-Others-.-.-.-Third-Edition

Virtuous Policing by D. Bolgiano
https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2876113


If one is even going to consider ever commenting on a police use of force event, OIS or otherwise, from a position of knowledge rather than feelz they really should read In Defense of Self and Others all the way through, twice. Have both 2nd & 3rd editions, have given them as gifts and 'here, read this!'

The above Bolgiano offering is good, because of his background, but not as good as his works on ROE and self-defense in the military. We have mutual friends but I do not know the author;
Klinger’s Into the Kill Zone is solid as he has experience on his side;
Brook’s “officer down, code 3” is a good read from the principles side of things as is Calibre Press’ Street Survival.
If one wants to see what being a new cop might be like in a big city, Boot is worth it;

[dogcaller]

Thanks, everyone for your recommendations-these should keep me busy for a while!