True Blue

This compulsively readable anthology of true-life, first person stories proves once again that cops have fascinating tales to tell. The pieces span the range of police experience, from light-hearted reminiscences--a cop pretends to use his radar gun to exterminate the space aliens lurking in a crazy man's attic--to tearful eulogies to partners killed in the line of duty. Most of the staple scenarios of police drama are represented, including interrogation tricks that get criminals to confess, harrowing drive-bys, hostage situations, bloody double-murder crime scenes, child-abduction man-hunts, predators who molest children but beat the system, and even a sirens-blaring escort to the hospital for a woman in labor. The contributing cops are mostly amateur writers, and their style ranges from just-the-facts-ma'am procedural to overwrought noir (""winos, junkies, lizard-eyed pimps and their sweating whores lolled in doorways, waiting for the parade of street carrion that brought the next trick and the next high""). The deftly edited narratives are fast-paced and pithy, but the most affecting stories are the quieter ones--a man hit by a bus, a senile woman distraught over her husband's death, a quadriplegic trying to get help for his brother's seizures--in which cops contemplate humanity in extremis.