Where The Night Police prowl!
The Night Police, a fictional account of true crime takes place in Bristol City, not too far west of the Mississippi. As told in the first volume, our story takes place even further west, but we designed Bristol City as the focus of our stories.
Why? As they used to say on Dragnet, we’ve changed the names and places to protect the innocent.
Frankly, it would be difficult to get the depth of each storyline and the characters depicted without providing anonymity for those involved, and that includes Paul and me.
We never wanted to write a politically correct book. Never considered writing a politically correct book. Our choice was to tell true stories of Night Policemen, whether that painted them in a good or bad light. We wanted the reader to understand at least the professional lives of lawmen and how it affects those who’ve chosen to undertake a tough and often dangerous profession.
Policing in America is not a Hollywood production. Let’s be honest here, Hollywood can produce some terrific entertainment, but they do not chronicle real police work or police life for the most part. If you put the left-leaning filter over real life, you get a left-leaning depiction of a lesser truth. That can cut both ways.
In The Night Police, we tell the story from a narrow geographical perspective. This too colors the truth. What is true for policing in San Francisco is not true for policing in Honolulu or Dayton, Ohio. Hell, policing can be different precinct by precinct in the same city. As the jurisdictions widen and the agencies become more diverse, there is more potential to mis-paint with that broad brush just what policing looks like for a particular agency. Trust us, DEA operations in Bogota, Columbia do not mirror those in Los Angeles.
Similar missions, procedures and techniques are in place for many agencies. The risks may even be comparable to a degree. When you add the human element to the equation, there's your wild card.
Real-life policing is hard and unpredictable and often unforgiving. It impacts the personal lives of the men and women in blue. How could it not? Are these officers for example, more prone to divorce than the general population? Absolutely. The job, the hours and the stakes, take a toll. The types of persons who take these jobs likely influence the statistics. Street monsters and The Night Police are particularly prone to disunite.
Bitching and moaning is popular, communal and expected in the police family. Pissed at the wife. Pissed at the bosses. Pissed about the shift, the assignment, the cruiser you got assigned to for your night on the town. The city administrators, most attorneys and the courts are perpetual thorns in the side of lawmen.
You think there’s any chance they’ll let that mouth breather who’s molesting the neighborhood 3rd graders walk free? On videotape you say? No problem. Actually, it's likely they'll find some bullshit reason to throw that out of court. He has rights you know.
If you’re the Po-lice, do not get caught nicking some miscreant who’s just hawked a wad of vile phlegm in your face, you my son WILL go to jail. Oh, and your retirement might get yanked too.
There is a predictable and disappointing career trajectory that often manifests as the journey from bright-eyed, shiny rookie, to solid predictable journeyman to that of a cynical, often broken ending.
The characters on both sides of the razor's edge are the constants cops can count on. The crooks and the cops. It is these characters with differing motivations, behaviors, the character truths and flaws and the risks they take and sometimes endure that make them so engaging. That drives the stories of The Night Police series.
We liberally sprinkle The Night Police with terms such as street monsters, ass kickers and douchebags. Why? Because these character types DO exist in every law enforcement agency as well as on the “dark side”. The stories we share will run from heartbreaking to hysterically funny, from desperate to macabre, from grinding frustration to breathless exhilaration. This is what our brothers in blue experience every day they put on that badge.
The storyline and the characters are where we hang our hats. We know that in Boston each chapter will unfold with a new and vibrant texture unseen in Bristol City. How the characters respond to pain, love, loss, fear, anxiety and to their nemesis, the crooks who share the same streets, create the stories for us.
Pour yourself a couple of fingers of a nice single malt and settle in for your shift with The Night Police. And do the responsible thing, hang on!
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