Rookies and Chiefs

Police-Writers.com, a website dedicated to listing state and local police officers who have authored books, has added two police officers and their seven books to the lengthy list of police writers.

In 1962 T. Mike Walker received his MA in Language Arts and Creative Writing. He was an associate editor for Etc. Magazine of General Semantics from 1963-65, and taught Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. He worked his way through college as a police officer for the San Francisco Police Department. In 1969, his novel, Voices From The Bottom of the World: A Policeman's Journal, was published.

In Voices, the story of a rookie police officer is told through a journal he keeps. According to the book description, “The book opens with a description of Danny's training at the police Academy and his indoctrination into the rituals of sanctioned force. Then, as a rookie cop on the beat, he relates his experiences, his sometimes ludicrous and almost tragic mistakes, the gradual loss of his naiveté, and the disintegration of his marriage. He is then assigned to help guard the stadium at the Monterey Jazz Festival—during this sunny interlude he lives in a dream world of music and sex. The journal ends with Danny's duty in the Misdemeanor section of the city prison, where he slowly learns to become indifferent, and even brutal, to the prisoners, absorbing the idea of violence almost without realizing what is happening to him.”

T. Mike Walker’s other books are Respect: Hippy High School in the Summer of Love and The Butter Fly Bride.

Chief of Police Joseph D. McNamara (retired) began his career as a New York Police Department police officer. While still in his 30s, he rose to the rank of Deputy Inspector (one rank above captain in NYPD’s hierchy). He left NYPD to become the Chief of Police of the Kansas City Police Department (Missouri). At that time, he was likely the youngest chief of police in a major city. He left Kansas City to take the reigns of the San Jose Police Department (California) as their chief.

Joseph D. McNamara has written for novels. The first three, The First Directive, Fatal Command and The Blue Mirage feature the character Finnbar Fraliegh. The books follow Fraliegh’s career from a detective sergeant in a large police department, to a newly formed police department as the chief of detectives and finally to the acting chief of police in a third.

According to the book description of Joseph D. McNamara’s fourth book, Code 211 Blue, “Kevin McKay is a hometown boy who grew up to be a cop. Now he's out of the fire and into the heat--transferred from narcotics to a serial rape case that is turning into murder. But while McKay scours San Francisco from the Tenderloin to Chinatown for a perp known only as Ski Mask, a web of betrayal is being spun by the most dangerous enemies a cop can ever have--the ones who carry a badge. Trusting no one--not his bosses, not the rich lady he's falling in love with--McKay is fighting back against a death trap with his wits, his courage, and his honor . . . on streets stained forever with blood.”

Police-Writers.com now hosts 342 police officers (representing 144 police departments) and their 772 books in six categories, there are also listings of United States federal law enforcement employees turned authors, international police officers who have written books and civilian police personnel who have written books.