Interview with Sam Wiebe, Author of Hell and Gone

 

I met Sam Wiebe at Bouchercon in Raleigh through mutual friends. We shared a table at that year’s Shamus dinner, where I learned he’s as good a guy as he is a writer. Sam is the award-winning author of the Wakeland novels, one of the most authentic and acclaimed detective series in Canada, including Invisible Dead, Cut You Down, and the new one, Hell and Gone. Sam’s other books include Never Going Back, Last of the Independents, and the Vancouver Noir anthology, which he edited. He has won the Crime Writers of Canada award and the Kobo Emerging Writers prize, and been shortlisted for the Edgar, Hammett, Shamus, and City of Vancouver book prizes. His original film/tv projects have been optioned, and his short stories have appeared in ThugLit, Spinetingler, and subTerrain, as well as anthologies by Houghton-Mifflin and Image Comics. You can follow him on Twitter (@sam_wiebe) and learn more about him on his web site.

 

One Bite at a Time: Welcome back, Sam. It’s always a treat to have you. Give us the quick and dirty on your new book, Hell and Gone.

 

Sam Wiebe: Thanks so much, Dana. Here’s the pitch:

 

An act of public violence breaks out on the street in the early morning. Wakeland witnesses the violence from his office, getting a look at the shooters as they drive off. He leaps into action—literally jumping down from the fire escape to perform first aid on the wounded. A hero.

 

But when he enters the building where the shooters came from, he sees something so beyond his experience that when the police ask him what he witnessed, Wakeland refuses to say.

 

Soon Wakeland is caught between a ruthless police chief and a pair of gang leaders, all of whom want the shooters found, no matter the cost in human life.

 

The only way for Wakeland to come to grips with this is to find the shooters—before they find him.

 

OBAAT: Correct me if I’m wrong, but a common thread through the Wakeland books is that, for all its multiculturalism, Vancouver is very much an exclusive society. Am I right to pick up on that, or am I reading things onto the books that aren’t there?

 

SW: Vancouver is a far more troublesome place than the postcards lead one to believe. Harm reduction, gentrification, gang warfare and systemic racism—these are at the forefront of Hell and Gone. As Wakeland says, “We are where the West ends.”

 

OBAAT: Wakeland’s partner, Jeff Chen, straddles a line between his Chinese ancestry and the white Vancouver executive class. Where did the idea for Jeff come from?

 

SW: I didn’t want Wakeland to have a sidekick—my feeling is, if you’ve got a seven-foot sociopath with bad tattoos and a stockpile of weapons on speed-dial, you’re probably don’t have to do much detective work.

 

But I did want someone who contrasts and compliments Dave, a partner with a different understanding of the city.

 

Jeff Chen is a family man, a businessman, the opposite of Wakeland in a lot of ways. Their differences make their partnership all the stronger. If Dave is Steve Wozniak, Jeff would be Steve Jobs.

 

But Jeff has a secret: the financing for their business came from community leader and suspected gangster Roy Long. When Wakeland finds this out, it will stress their partnership to its breaking point.

 

OBAAT: The past couple of books has taken Wakeland south of the border for insights on some particularly bad shit. Is this a metaphor for the US’s pervasive influence on Canadian business and society, or just that the plot logically took you to Baja Canada?

 

SW: I love America (I’m trying not to sound like the beginning of The Godfather…). My heart lies with the American style of detective novel, the focus on people rather than puzzles. That’s the tradition I write in.

 

I’ve spent a lot of time in Washington State and Oregon, and I’d just done a road trip to Raleigh when I started Hell and Gone. Culture doesn’t stop at the border, and neither does Wakeland.

 

OBAAT: Your debut novel, Last of the Independents, yet you abandoned PI Michael Drayton for Dave Wakeland, a partner in a large agency. Why the change in course?

 

SW:

 

Several reasons, having to do with how Last of the Independents ends, the darker subject matter I wanted to cover needing a different tone, and the nature of publishing. Making Wakeland part of a successful detective agency was a way to open up to different stories.

 

I look at Last of the Independents as my ‘demo tape.’ But Hell and Gone is the best detective novel I’ve written.

 

OBAAT: You and I are both great fans of David Milch. (Deadwood, NYPD Blue, etc.) What is it about his work that resonates so strongly with you? (In case you aren’t yet aware, his memoir, Life’s Work, drops in September.)

 

SW: He deserves much better praise than I can muster on a Tuesday morning, but here goes.

 

Before I’d really committed myself to writing, I found myself in a college class next to a guy who’d just sold a screenplay. He told me about Milch’s “Idea of the Writer” lectures, which you can find online. As someone who never had a writing mentor—had never really met a novelist until I was in my twenties—those lectures were very helpful to me.

 

OBAAT: If you could look back and give aspiring novelist Sam Wiebe one piece of advice, what would it be?

 

SW:  Learn as much about how the business works as possible, so that its ups and downs disrupt your writing as little as possible. It’s easier to “make a living as a writer” if you’re smart with money and averse to debt.

 

OBAAT: And now for the traditional final question: what’s next?

 

SW: Hell and Gone is out March 8th, and I’m thrilled with the response so far. I’ve got a standalone thriller on submission, and I’m revising Wakeland 4 right now.

 

Thanks, Dana!

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers

 The Beloved Spouse™ and I recently completed viewing every episode of Cheers. For those who weren’t around to enjoy the original broadcasts, here’s an idea of why we watched at least two episodes almost every night.

 

First, and most important for a comedy, the show is hilarious. Some of the humor may seem dated – and, to some, bits of it may seem inappropriate – but it’s always clever, and, for a show that builds much of its humor on the cluelessness of the characters, much more intelligent than most comedies, with the possible exception of its spin-off, Frasier. (By this I don’t mean droll, or something high-brow that inspires conspiratorial smiles from the viewer. I mean laugh out loud funny.)

 

The characters are well-drawn, and provide enough variety to help keep the writing fresh for eleven years. Each has his or her own well-defined persona, and they stick to it, though there are still some surprises, just as with the people we know.

 

This works because the producers cast actors suit their roles and are good at their jobs. I’ve always been a Ted Danson fan, but watching the show now made me appreciate how good he really is. Even his background reactions were always in character and complemented the punch line or situation.

 

There are a couple of examples of how well the producers chose their actors. Kelsey Grammar (Frasier Crane) and his eventual wife, Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) came in to fill short term needs. Frazier became a regular and eventually got his own show, which ran as long as Cheers; Lilith became regular enough to get a credit.

 

Necessary replacements provide even better examples. Nicholas Colasanto (Coach), beloved of cast and audience, died after season three, to be replaced by a young Woody Harrelson as Woody Boyd, a character that filled the same role in the repertory company as Coach, but in a much different manner.

 

The big change, of course, came when Shelley Long (Diane Chambers) left the show. Kirstie Alley came in and picked right up. The writers changed the premise mid-stream and never missed a beat. There has never been a better comedic crier then Mary Tyler Moore, but Kirstie Alley is in her league.

 

What makes all this work? The writing, of course. No actor can be better than the material, and Cheers is as well-written a show as has ever been on television. It could have fallen into the trap of being a typical workplace sitcom, but the bar setting allowed the writers to leverage one of the core strengths of Barney Miller by providing opportunity for truly eccentric characters to pass through. I can’t remember any examples in the 272 episodes where I thought, “Well, that was wasted.”

 

Cheers debuted forty years ago. It holds up well despite society’s changing attitudes about such core parts of the show as Sam’s womanizing and Norm’s drinking because, like all classic sitcoms, at its core it’s about people, and these are people for whom the writers have genuine affection. If you’ve never seen Cheers, do yourself a favor and check it out. If you saw it during its original run, stop by again and remember what it’s like to spend time where everyone knows your name.

It's a Process

Recent posts to Facebook and Twitter about my advancement through the work-in-progress led to several requests for details on my constantly evolving process. I find such requests supremely flattering, because, let’s face it, why should anyone give a fuck about how I write? That people care is validation that I must be doing something right.

 

So, for what it’s worth, here’s how I’m writing the current book, working title “The Spread.”

 

The Outline

Yes, I’m a plotter, though I add some scenes, drop others, and re-arranged throughout the process.

 

I never sit down and think, “What will this book be about?” Ideas for subsequent stories come to mind as I work on each book. I take the notes compiled over the past year, read newspaper articles, and get an idea of where the book is going. I then make slugs on notecards for the scenes I need in order to get there, no more than a sentence or two on each card.

 

The real fun comes when The Beloved Spouse™ and I lay the cards on a table to put them in order, after which I transfer the information to Scrivener for any necessary re-arrangements easier, no matter how far I am into the draft.

 

First Draft

One Scrivener file per chapter. Since dialog comes easier for me, the first draft looks almost like a screen play. Speech attributions are a letter to designate which character is talking. Almost everything except dialog is in all caps, using brief descriptions.

 

Here's the opening from a chapter in “The Spread:”

 

NEUSCHWANDER COMES TO DOC WITH EVIDENCE FROM POWELL’S CAR. HE COMES TO DOC’S OFFICE WITH A COUPLE OF REPORTS IN HAND.

N. I have something from Gregory Powell’s car that might be of interest.

D. Interest me.

The point is to get the story on file without getting bogged down in details. I add, delete, or re-arrange scenes as I go and think of things I like better.

 

Another core element of the first draft is what TBS and I call “resting transparently.” It’s a term we got from a series of lectures by David Milch (Deadwood, NYPD Blue) called “The Idea of the Writer.” Among the scores of worthwhile things Milch has to say is a quote from Kierkegaard: “An artist must rest transparently on the spirit that gives him rise.” I “rest transparently” by trying not to think about the writing until about fifteen minutes before I’m going to do it. Then I sit in my favorite reading chair, in a quiet room, and make my mind a blank. My subconscious knows what needs to happen next int the book; I just have to let it out.  Sometimes I need the full fifteen minutes; sometimes fewer than five. Then I hammer out a thousand words or so, typically in under an hour. (This is imperfect, as thoughts about a book crowd into my mind all the time. It’s just that I only let them have their way while I’m resting transparently. Early on, I also fell asleep more than a few times.)

 

I may go more or less than a thousand words, but I never write for more than 45 minutes to an hour. Again, from Milch: “The ego is the enemy of the imagination.” As soon as I start thinking about whether what I’m writing is any good, I stop.

 

I do this two or three times a day. I’m retired, so I can spread the work through the entire day if I want.

 

Then the book sits for at least a month. I won’t let myself look at it in less than four weeks, but somewhere in the next fortnight I’ll start climbing the walls to get back at it. (I start again after six weeks no matter what.)

 

Second Draft (Re-Write)

I read the entire book and don’t change a thing. I make notes, but that’s all.

 

Then I open the Scrivener file and a clean Word document. Split the screen, with Scrivener on top and Word below, and retype the entire book. For me, leaving my darlings by the side of the road is much easier than having to kill them. Re-typing everything is an ideal opportunity to decide what needs to come over, and, just as important, what doesn’t.

 

This draft is where I add the details I only mentioned in passing in the first draft, such as narration and description.

 

As with the first draft, I write about a thousand words per session, twice a day. I don’t typically need to rest transparently unless the whole chapter consists of a few notes; everything I need should already be there.

 

Third Draft (Editing)

This is a standard edit. I read and make changes as I go. A chapter or two a day, no more. I’d rather stop feeling fresh and raring to go tomorrow than worn out and dreading the next task. I may also run it through a word frequency calculator to see if some inadvertent favorite words (just, enough, etc.) were overdone.

 

Then I let it sit again for at least a few weeks.

 

Fourth Draft (Finishing)

I call this one draft, but it’s actually a four-part endeavor and is probably the most intensive aspect of the process.

 

Day 1:

Read Chapter 1. That’s all. Just read it. Don’t take notes. All I want to do is remind myself what happens to jump start my subconscious, which will work on it for the rest of the day.

 

Day 2:

Edit Chapter 1. This is similar to the third draft, but this time I’m doing it with the idea in mind the book is finished after this edit.

Read Chapter 2.

 

Day 3:

I have Word read Chapter 1 to me a paragraph or so at a time so I can listen to what it sounds like and make changes accordingly. I used to read it aloud to myself, but I’ve found that letting Word do that frees me to be a better listener.

Edit Chapter 2.

Read Chapter 3.

 

Day 4:

Print out Chapter 1 and read it aloud to The Beloved Spouse™. (This is what I do. you can ask her if she’ll do it for you, but it might cost.) Make notes as she or I catch things, then fix them when I go back to the office.

Listen to Chapter 2.

Edit Chapter 3.

Read Chapter 4.

 

Days 5 until the end of the book:

Keep at it.

 

I then have Word’s editor go through the entire book. It’s a much better program than it used to be, though still not perfect. That’s okay. I’d rather have to tell Word to ignore a point of grammar than miss something else altogether.

 

After that’s done, and only after that’s done, I type “THE END” at the bottom.

 

That’s how I’m working on “The Spread.” The previous book, “White Out,” (dropping in July from Down & Out Books) was the same except for the narrative placeholders in the first draft. The next book will likely be a bit different yet.

 

Take what you want from this if you think it will help you. Adjust to suit your needs.

 

Please feel free to comment, either here on the blog, Facebook, or Twitter.

 

This is a much longer post than usual. Thanks for hanging in there.

 

(I know some of you may be thinking “I have a deadline. I can’t write that little each day and take all that time off.” Wah. Having a deadline means you have a contract in hand which means you have guaranteed money. Get over it. The luxury of having a process like mine is one of the few benefits writers such as me get. I’m not apologizing.)

Reacher

 The first thing the creators of the Amazon Prime series Reacher did right was to cast Alan Richson as Reacher. Not that Richson is the second coming of Laurence Olivier. He doesn’t need to be. He looks like Jack Reacher, facially and physically. No offense to Tom Cruise, who is a fine actor, but Lee Child’s books work because Jack Reacher carries an obvious level of physical intimidation with him. That requires someone who is at least close to Reacher’s description of 6’ 5” and 250 pounds. Wikipedia has Cruise as 5-7, and he's obviously not a millimeter taller. That nearly a foot is hard to make up.

 

I don’t mean to dismiss Richson as an actor. I’ve never seen him in anything else, and Reacher doesn’t stretch his range. He does the low-key banter well, as well as the deadpan humor. His speeches are a little robotic, but anyone who’d read the books knows Reacher doesn’t let out any more emotion than he has to. This may be how they’ve chosen to portray that.

 

What all Reacher Creatures want to know is how well the series captures the tone of the books. Rest easy. They nailed it. I’ve read several Reacher books and tend to look upon them as guilty pleasures. I don’t mean that as a pejorative, but let’s face it: Reacher is a superhero. You can’t read the books – or watch the show - and believe any of this could actually happen. That’s all right. We need a little escapism once in a while, and Child was smart enough to provide enough depth to Reacher’s character that one is never sorry to have spent time with him. He’s just not going to provoke existential discussions afterward.

 

The supporting cast is okay. The primary villain is a bit over the top, but for the most part everyone carries their water faithfully. The standout is Willa Fitzgerald as officer Roscoe Conklin. To paraphrase The Beloved Spouse™, Fitzgerald can be cute as a button and hard as nails almost simultaneously.

 

There are some iffy parts. Margrave, Georgia seems to have forensic capabilities Gil Grissom would be proud of. There is also a disconnect as to who Reacher should have trouble beating up, and who is a worthy adversary.

 

Those are quibbles. The producers didn’t set out to reinvent Deadwood or Braking Bad. It’s a 21^st Century Western, where the lone stranger rides into town (albeit on a bus), get sweet on a local girl, kicks serious ass, sets things right, and rides off into the sunset. No one is going to teach college-level classes on the social relevancy of Reacher like those inspired by The Wire. That’s okay. The show knows what it is, and it does that very well. The world could use more of that attitude. I’m looking forward to Season 2.

Movies and TV Since the Last Time

 The Courier (2020) Benedict Cumberbatch in an excellent retelling of the Penkovsky spy situation that took place around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cumberbatch plays a British businessman recruited my M.I.6 to act as the go-between with Penkovsky. A perfect example of how to build and sustain tension and suspense without blowing shit up.

 

Green Zone (2010) Based on another true story, this time set in the early days of the Iraq War. Matt Damon plays a warrant officer caught between politics, the media, and the CIA agent (Brendan Gleeson) who’s trying to make things come out right. Lots of shit blows up here, but never gratuitously. Well worth your time.

 

Galaxy Quest (1999) I forget how many times I’ve seen this*, and it’s always fun. If you haven’t seen it, you should, especially if you’re a Trekkie and have a sense of humor. (* - Note to Mike Dennis: Not as many times as L.A. Confidential.)

 

Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary (2019) First time for this one and it changed my attitude about cosplay. The film not only tells much of how Galaxy Quest was made, it explores the word of cosplayers with a humorous, yet sympathetic light. Galaxy Quest devotees will probably enjoy it more, but, then again, shouldn’t everyone be a Galaxy Quest fan?

 

Bad Santa 2 (2016) I didn’t even know there was a Bad Santa 2 until I stumbled onto this while searching streaming services for the original. The rare sequel that’s as much fun as the original, with humor at least as outrageous.

 

We Were Soldiers (2002) Maybe the best film I’ve seen about what it’s like to be a conscientious military commander. Closely based on a true story, the movie shows the Vietnam War battle for Ia Drang, the first time helicopters were used to ferry infantry to and from a battlefield, and all the plusses and fuck-ups that entails. Mel Gibson and Sam Elliott are excellent as the commander and his sergeant major; Greg Kinnear shines in one of his first dramatic roles as a chopper pilot. Fair warning: this is not the easiest movie to watch, as it’s horribly gruesome in places.

 

Don’t Look Up (2021) Don’t look at this piece of shit at all. I lived through the eras of such brilliant satires As Dr, Strangelove, Catch-22, M*A*S*H, Wag the Dog, and Primary Colors, and have unfortunately lived long enough to see this ham-handed effort to point out what’s wrong with the world today. It’s been a while since I saw so much acting talent wasted like this. I suppose everyone felt good about coming down on the right side of this discussion. If only they’d decided to make a good movie while they were at it.

 

Gladiator (2000) Made when Russell Crowe was arguably the biggest star in Hollywood, Gladiator is among the reasons he earned the spot. Joaquin Phoenix is repulsively squishy as the new emperor and Connie Nielsen as his equally scheming sister, but everything in the movie revolves around what to do about Maximus (Crowe). A damn near perfect example of telling a compelling story in a compelling manner. Was I not entertained? Damn right I was.

 

The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window (2022) Not a movie, but a short (3 ½ hours) streaming series from Netflix. IMDB lists the genres as “Comedy Crime Drama Mystery Thriller.” If you think that combo equates to a mess, you’re not far off. It’s presented as a comedy, but much of the early “humor” derives from a woman who is going insane from grief, which has about as much comedy potential as AIDS. (Things get rolling at 30 seconds into the video.) The comedy picks up as the show goes along, but even then it’s too more clever than laugh-out-loud funny.

 

Striking Distance (1993) Never watch a movie because you learned a fifteen-second scene took place a mile from where you grew up. This one’s a stinker from the get-go, despite the formidable supporting cast of Dennis farina, Sarah Jessica Parker, Tom Sizemore, John Mahoney, Andre Braugher, and Robert Pastorelli. The film gets the Pittsburgh look well, but not much else. The plot is a mess, the dialog is typical of the renegade cop genre, and the excellent cast is given little to work with.

 

Gorky Park (1983) William Hurt plays Arkady Renko in this adaptation of Martin Cruz Smith’s novel. I saw it in a theater during its original release and thought it would be a nice palate cleanser after the disaster that was Striking Distance. Alas, it did not hold up well, despite the best efforts of Lee Marvin and Brian Dennehy. The film leaves too many plot particulars to the imagination, especially the key reveal of the plot behind everything else, which Dennehy hands to Renko on a platter with us having no idea how an American detective operating as a tourist in the USSR could have discovered it. These back-to-back failures got me suspended from picking movies for a while.

 

 

 

 

 

 

City on a Hill

 I have been less than flattering about my recent crime show experiences on both HBO and Showtime. (How American Rust keeps showing up on lists as Showtimes best crime show is beyond me.) Just as I was beginning to wonder if I’d reached the age where nothing new appealed to me, a friend told me to check out City on a Hill.

 

Now, this is a good show. Better than good, even.

 

The show is set in Boston, right after the Charles Stuart controversy. (Stuart was a white man who killed his pregnant wife, then called the police to say a Black carjacker shot her. Mayhem ensued when Boston police started rounding up Black males with inappropriate enthusiasm. More details here.) City on a Hill focuses on the racial tensions that flared after the Stuart case fell apart.

 

CoaH leaves this in the background, telling its stories through two main characters. Jackie Rohr (Kevin Bacon, in a stunning performance) is a corrupt FBI agent living off the reputation he built for taking down a Mafia crime family. It’s never made clear, but the implication is he was the beneficiary of information provided by Whitey Bulger as part of Bulger’s plan to take over Boston organized crime by working as a federal informant. Jackie is a detestable human being, but he’s also charming as hell, and Bacon plays him with a likeability that will often make you feel uncomfortable.

 

Jackie’s foil/partner/antagonist is DeCourcy Ward (Aldis Hodge), a Black state’s attorney despised by most of the Boston police for having worked on the federal task force charged with finding justice for BPD’s racist handling of the Stuart case.

 

Season One focuses on Jackie’s efforts to muscle in on an investigation of an armored car robbery that led to the execution-style killing of three guards. That leads us to the criminal side of things, where Frankie Ryan (Jonathan Tucker) runs a small crew with his wife (Amanda Clayton) as the money manager and his brother Jimmy (Mark O’Brien) as the fuck up. The dynamic there is fraught with tension, as is the relationship among the branches of law enforcement.

 

This could deteriorate into a sensationalistic soap opera pretty quickly, but the people in charge know what they’re doing. City on a Hill is a Tom Fontana/Barry Levinson production (Homicide: Life on the Street) created by Chuck Maclean that has all the elements one needs in a well-told story. Unlike the other shows I have recently been critical of, City on a Hill, for all its bleakness, is laugh out loud funny in places, just like real life. Jackie in particular has a sardonic, often inappropriate sense of humor that lends a feel of realism to the events. (Easter egg: Fontana got his start writing for St. Elsewhere. The primary hospital used in City on a Hill is St. Eligius.)

 

I could go on for a while, but I don’t want to inadvertently spread any spoilers. City on a Hill gets my highest recommendation. If you subscribe to Showtime, watch it. If you don’t subscribe to Showtime, look for a deal, get it, watch City on a Hill, then opt out if you want. That’s what we did. At least till Season 3 releases, when it’ll be time to start looking for another special.

The Problem With Writing Cops Today

 My Penns River books are police friendly. My cops aren’t perfect, but they’re basically decent, well-intentioned people, just like all of the cops I know. Alas, it is impossible to pay attention in today’s society and assume all cops are like this. Some days it’s hard to assume even most cops are. I’m not talking about corruption per se, though it figures in. I’m talking about an increased tendency to see interactions with civilians as “us versus them” situations. We are not, and should not be, antagonistic forces. Both civilians and cops are safer if both sides cooperate, but it takes both sides giving a little.

 

Some of the problem comes from the growing mantra among police departments that their primary job is to go home safely. Let there be no misunderstanding: I want all cops to go home safely every night, but that’s not what we pay them for. They have sworn oaths to keep protect those of us not entitled to use lethal force, and that involves some risk to them. Sometimes great risk. When I hear of a cop – or, more likely, a union official - say their job is to go home in one piece, my first thought is “This guy’s in the wrong line of work. Is Paul Blart’s job open?”

 

Since I brought up police unions, they worry me more than individual cops. To pick a current controversy, many police unions around the country are protesting vaccination and mask mandates, often claiming these rules violate the officers’ “bodily autonomy.” Pardon me for snark, but I’ve yet to hear a word about bodily autonomy from a police union after a cop shoots someone, or beats them senseless. They took oaths and signed contracts to work for whichever government they work for. They need to be bound by the same rules as everyone else.

 

Standing by everything I said above doesn’t mean I have a millisecond’s time for any “defund the police” bullshit, and that’s exactly what it is: bullshit. We need to move the funding around to enhance training, counseling, and understanding how PTSD affects officers on the job. We also need ways to weed out those who lack the disposition to be cops while encouraging the recruitment of people who would be good at it. Just because I said above that going home safely shouldn’t be the only priority doesn’t mean I don’t advocate going to great lengths to ensure everyone, cop and civilian alike, arrives home in the same condition they left in.

 

Why am I posting this in a blog dedicated to writing? I have become uncomfortable with how I depict my cops. I don’t feel I provide a nuanced enough picture, which isn’t fair to anyone. Good cops should stand out, and they don’t if everyone is a straight up “good cop.” Hell, definitions of what makes a good cop differ. In the outstanding documentary The Seven-Five, I learned there was a time (maybe even still is) when for an NYPD officer to refer to another as a “good cop” meant he wouldn’t say anything about improper conduct.

 

That’s also bullshit, and it has to stop. My personal issue is that, in my universe, it doesn’t exist. I need to find a way to be fair without whitewashing things – which I may have done in the past - or throwing everyone under the bus. It’s a balancing act, but if I pull it off, the books will be better for it.

 

Don’t be surprised to see more on this topic down the road.