July's Best Reads

July was a bit of an odd reading month, with half of it taken up by a vacation that didn’t lend itself much to reading. Having said that, what reading time I had was well spent.

World Gone By, Dennis Lehane. No one combines as many key elements of good writing and storytelling as Lehane. He’s the best when he’s on his game, writing with style and grace without overtly making you so aware of it you’re distracted from the story, which is always good. I wasn’t a huge fan of Live By Night—at least not by the standards I set for Lehane’s work after such gems as The Given Day and The Drop—but World Gone By more than makes up for it. Enough so that I wonder if I should give Live By Night another chance.

King Maybe, Timothy Hallinan. As good as Hallinan’s Poke Rafferty series is—and that series is damned good---the Junior Bender saga might have eclipsed it. Hallinan is able to take a caper Donald Westlake would have been proud to involve John Dortmunder in and wraps it in a story of psychological control of another person that rises to a pathological level. Those who enjoy the break-ins that launched the series will have more than enough to entertain them, and those who fell under the spell of the more personal elements that turned up in Herbie’s Game and The Fame Thief will get plenty of that. In short, there’s something for everyone here, and, as always with Hallinan, seamlessly delivered.

Crime Scene, Connie Fletcher. The queen of oral police histories. Her books never get stale, no matter how often I read them.

400 Things Cops Know, Adam Plantinga. Another re-read (I’m researching the next Penns River book) that has already earned a place next to Fletcher on my shelf and in my esteem.

400 Things Cops Know

I bought 400 Things Cops Know because I figured it would be a good resource for my writing. By about Page 10 I was prepared to recommend it to all crime fiction writers. Now that I’ve finished it, I think everyone who expresses an opinion about police work should read it before they shoot off their mouths, regardless of which side of the debate they come from.

Adam Plantinga has been/is a cop in Milwaukee and San Francisco, so he not only has big city cred, he’s worked in two very different big cities. As someone who has taken writing courses, he is better able to express himself than a lot of people, and views police work from both inside and out. The book is a fascinating look not only at what cops know, but how they perceive themselves.

Lots of cops know these things. Plantinga’s observations are set apart by the quality of his writing. His dry wit shows how cops have to look at things just to get through the days, juxtaposing the gut-wrenching and entertaining aspects of the job. Plantinga trusts his readers to decide how they feel about each example and incident. He’s less interested in directing emotions than he is in making sure the reader gets even-handed information. It doesn’t hurt that he’s laugh out loud funny in spots, sometimes when least expected.

For writers of crime fiction, this book is a gold mine. I marked for reference close to a hundred of the 400 things. (The only reason the number isn’t higher is because I already knew some things, and the validation in this context was good to have.) Among the things I didn’t know before but will be sure to use are, in no particular order:

·         How best for a male officer to recover from a blow to the groin.

·         How to tell if someone who claims not to speak English is bullshitting you.

·         The three most common techniques used by fleeing motorists to avoid capture.

·         What kinds of things you can, and cannot, lift fingerprints from.

·         On a traffic stop, give the offending driver either a ticket or a lecture. It’s not fair to give both.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

·         Write your blood type on your ballistic vest so EMTs can see it right away, if needed.

There are about 394 more of these, but I don’t want to ruin it for you.

Not only will 400 Things Cops Know give you a better idea of what cops look for on the job, it will give you a better idea of how cops think. (Well, at least how cops think who aren’t wedded to the “Us versus Them” mentality and understand we’re all in this together.) It’s by turn fascinating, informative, funny, and heartbreaking, often more than one simultaneously. The only comparable books I can think of are Connie Fletcher’s wonderful series. I can give no higher praise than that.

February Reads

February was another good reading month, with non-fiction still taking up the best spent of my time.

How We Got to Now, Steven Johnson. The companion to PBS’s excellent mini-series, with a few things PBS didn’t have time to include. I’m glad I read Where Do Good Ideas Come From? first, as some of the terminology used here was introduced there, but readers should have no trouble jumping right into this one. Fascinating, page after page.

The World of Raymond Chandler, Barry Day. Chandler never wrote a memoir, so Day has culled what he could about Chandler’s life and thoughts from Chandler’s own writing, including fiction, non-fiction, and letters. In doing so, he opens the door to much I didn’t know, and addresses some criticisms that have crept up as modern day sensitivities look back on Chandler’s work. Having read this, I don’t think I would have liked Chandler much as a person, but I have even more respect for his writing, as Day’s compilation of the best bits heightens the impact.

Courier, Terry Irving. Courier hung around near the top of my To Be Read list for four months; something urgent kept knocking it down a notch. I’m glad I got around to it. I’m not a thriller guy, but, having met Irving at a reading, his historical cred was impressive. The book reflects that, weaving its story into Watergate-era events in a way that put me in mind of James Ellroy’s use of historical events. The motorcycle scenes are particularly effective. Irving knows what he’s talking about, and does a nice job of avoiding the conventions send too many modern thrillers over the shark.

400 Things Cops Know, Adam Plantinga. I’ll have more about this one on Thursday. Suffice to say, every crime writer needs a copy of this book.

The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett. Holy shit. It had been at least ten years since I last read this. (My records only go back to 2006.) The seminal crime fiction/PI story. I finished it and didn’t want to write that evening. Comparing what I do to what he did is like putting a Little Leaguer up against Ted Williams.