Crime fiction written by police insiders

[GeoffR]

Does anyone know of any good crime fiction authors who are/were police detectives or other professionals with inside knowledge of police investigative procedure and attitudes? I'm especially interested in authors from places other than the UK and US, set in the 1960's or later, but all suggestions welcome.

(I wouldn't usually count prosecutors, judges, etc. as police insiders, unless they are from countries where those professions actually take part in, or direct, the police investigation.)


Australia:

P. M. Newton (Detective, New South Wales Police Force)
https://www.penguin.com.au/authors/pm-newton


France:

Laurent Guillaume (Police Commander, mobile crime unit Val-de-Marne)
https://www.lefrenchbook.com/laurent-guillaume/


Norway:

Jørn Lier Horst (Senior Investigating Officer, Vestfold Police district)
http://www.salomonssonagency.se/jorn-lier-horst


Sweden:

Leif G. W. Persson (Professor in Criminology, National Police Board)
http://www.salomonssonagency.se/leif-gw-persson


United Kingdom:

Graham Ison (Detective, Scotland Yard's Special Branch)
http://www.grahamison.co.uk/the-author-2.html

Basil Thomson (Assistant Commissioner (Crime), Scotland Yard)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Thomson


United States:

Neal Griffin (Criminal Investigations Division Commander, Southern California)
http://nealgriffin.com/about/

Archer Mayor (Detective, Windham County Sheriff’s Office)
http://archermayor.com/about/

Dorothy Uhnak (Detective, New York City Transit Police Dept.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Uhnak

Joseph Wambaugh (Detective Sergeant, Los Angeles Police Dept.)
http://www.josephwambaugh.net/bio.html


(I'll endevour to update this list as suggestions come in. Corrections or better links welcome.)

[issybird]

Can't help you with elsewhere, but Joseph Wambaugh is the American cop/author with whom I'm familiar.

[Catlady]

Another from the U.S.: Dorothy Uhnak was a police detective who wrote a number of crime novels; they've been re-released by Open Road.

[4691mls]

Your topic piqued my curiosity so I started googling and found a bunch of articles, blogs, etc. about former police officers who have written books. Most are US/UK. I make no representation as to the quality or availability of any of the books!

https://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures.../11/id/650025/

https://alexandraamor.com/former-pol...rryl-donaghue/

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/631...s-crime-novels

http://lubbockonline.com/local-news/...s-movie-rights

https://chataboutbooks.wordpress.com...ng-mikelinane/

http://www.abpatterson.com.au/also-c...ing-crime.html

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/...o-fiction.html

https://alexandraamor.com/former-pol...rryl-donaghue/

https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/0...n-second-girl/

[SteveEisenberg]

http://archermayor.com/about/

Archer Mayor is currently a death investigator for Vermont’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Over the past thirty years, he has also been a detective for the Windham County Sheriff’s Office, a volunteer firefighter/EMT, the publisher of his own backlist, and a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers.

Having read all of Mayor's fiction, and heard him explain this in a talk, I'll mention a few things.

First he wrote a biography.

Then he became a crime novelist who has written exactly one book in the same series for the past 28 years.

After being a novelist for a while, he took on the part-time job of being constable of his small town. This led him into other part-time law enforcement jobs.

See:

http://newfanevt.com/newfane-selectb...-march-3-2016/

and:

https://windhamcountyvt.gov/employee.profile.php?id=108

[Pajamaman]

Andrew Vachss

[Pulpmeister]

Quite a lot, in fact, depending on how far back you want to go.

How about, eg, Sir Basil Thompson, 1861-1939. He was appointed Assistant Commissioner Crime, Scotland Yard, in 1913. He wrote a bundle of detective novels, including a volume of humorous detective short stories featuring Mr Pepper; as well as a series of novels in which a young cop rises through the ranks from Constable to Chief Constable.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

Quite a lot, in fact, depending on how far back you want to go.

Personally I'm more interested in books set in the 1960's or later, but I'll keep track of earlier works in case others reading the thread are interested.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

http://www.abpatterson.com.au/also-c...ing-crime.html

That site has a good list, thanks.

Laurent Guillaume's White Leopard sounds like it might be good, I will try it soon.

[ZodWallop]

Marcia Clark, the O.J. Simpson prosecutor has written several books in two series (Rachel Knight and Samantha Brinkman). They are all fairly modern though.

Dashiell Hammett worked for the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

[MickiTee]

Uk's Graham Ison an ex Metropolitan Police officer who spent part of his career at Scotland Yard has written four series, two of which are available on Kindle Unlimited. Graham Ison

[mitford13]

Neal Griffin has a couple of procedurals out, held various positions in Southern California law enforcement.

http://nealgriffin.com/about/