This week I'm focusing on NYC cops who've become
cop-novelists.
The NYPD has always been inordinately influential in the
development of the police procedural. What many regard as the
"first" police procedurals, a series of short stories by
William MacHarg about a tough cop named O'Malley were set in
New York. So was the book often (somewhat erroneously) cited
as the first police procedural novel, Lawrence Treat's V AS
IN VICTIM. Sidney Kingsley's pioneering stage play about a
day in the squadroom of a typical big city police station,
DETECTIVE STORY, was set in NYC. So was the classic film noir
procedural, THE NAKED CITY. Not surprisingly, this largest of
all American police forces has been the "birthplace" of a
number of cop-novel-writing careers.
Strictly speaking, Robert Daley wasn't really a cop. He was a
professional journalist who served as the NYPD's deputy
commissioner for public affairs (sort of the department's
press agent) for a year or so under controversial Police
Commissioner Patrick Murphy. He did carry a shield and a gun,
and, presumably, had arrest authority, however, so he was at
least a quasi-cop.
His tenure came during an amazingly eventful time in NYPD's
history. The Knapp Commission, the firing of legendary
Detective Eddie Egan (the model for Gene Hackman's character
in THE FRENCH CONNECTION) for nothing more than resentment
over his movie fame, the shooting of whistle-blower Frank
Serpico, and the movement (a temporary one as it happened) of
detectives away from general precinct squads and toward
specialized details, the ambush murders of several cops by
the Black Liberation Army, all took place during his time of
service.
After leaving he wrote about his time with NYPD in TARGET
BLUE. Shortly afterwards he published his first NYPD novel,
TO KILL A COP, a thinly fictionalized version of the BLA
case, was well-received becoming a highly-rated TV-movie, and
ultimately, a TV series entitled EISCHIED (for the Chief of
Detectives hero loosely modeled on real-life C of D Al
Seedman, who spearheaded the hunt for the BLA).
Daley, not surprisingly, has tended to focus on high-ranking
executive-type cops rather than working street cops. The
lowest-ranking hero that I'm aware of is the captain
commanding the Chinatown precinct in YEAR OF THE
DRAGON.
He's also written one cop novel set in post-war France, THE
DANGEROUS EDGE, about a Surete agent, and another non-fiction
piece about the NYPD, PRINCE OF THE CITY, about narcotics
detective Robert Leuci, who, to redeem his own corruption,
decided to blow the whistle on department-wide corruption.
This became a well-received film and earned Treat Williams,
who played a fictional character modeled on Leuci, an Oscar
nomination. His most autobiogrpahical novel is presumably MAN
WITH A GUN, about a deputy commissioner for public affairs
with no prior law enforcement experience.
I enjoy Daley's novels quite a bit, but he never quite
manages to shake himself of the "gee-whiz" attitude of
someone on the outside of police work looking in. Still, he
was a paid NYPD eexecutive during one of NYPD's most active
periods, and his books are an interesting blend of "insider"
and "outsider" views of the Job.
JIM DOHERTY
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