January's Favorite Reads

Police Craft, Adam Plantinga. Plantinga has become the go-to source for people who want to know about police work from the cop’s perspective. Packed with information and routinely entertaining, any writer of police procedurals, or even just books with cops in them, needs to be well familiar with Police Craft and its predecessor, 400 Things Cops Know.

Eight Ball Boogie, Declan Burke. It had been too long since I read any of Burke’s work, mainly because he hasn’t put out anything new in a while so there was little to remind the public of him. This is why I keep a list of writers I want to be sure to get to periodically. Eight Ball Boogie is Burke’s first, and the first of his Harry Rigby books (the sequel, Slaughter’s Hound, is just as good) and it was a pleasure to re-familiarize myself with his work. Burke is one of those rare authors who can write anything. Whatever you know of his previous books tells you nothing of the next, except that it will be excellent. Eight Ball Boogie is Chandlerian in a way and Burke turns a phrase and simile as well as anyone. If you haven’t read him, you really ought to.