fiction: The City and the City by China Miéville
non-fiction: Our Enemies in Blue by Kristian Williams
A pretty mainstream choice, but ‘LA Confidential’. I got really into James Ellroy books for a while.
Or if you don’t want to feel horribly depressed, I guess I’d recommend ‘Guards! Guards!’
Edit Since that is mostly fantastical, I’d add:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide:_A_Year_on_the_Killing_Streets
Was the basis for the excellent shows “Homicide: Life on the Streets” and “The Wire”.
Well shoot, I was going to say The Onion Field, but that you had to post that.
I’m with you.
I should look up what he has done since the last time I read him, but my favorite of his is The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Hey, nothing wrong with the Onion Field! :)
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
Serpico: The Cop Who Defied the System
Lady Joker by Kaoru Takamura is a super rewarding read with lots of different narratives, 2 of them being two different Tokyo detectives
Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad books are quite good.
Joe Wambaugh was an actual LA cop for years. “The Choir Boys” is one of the few books about uniformed cops and not detectives.
Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels are considered the gold standard for police procedurals.
If I had to pick just one, I’d say ‘The Choir Boys.’
The End of Policing by Alex Vitale.
Thanks, that is a good Police Book
https://files.libcom.org/files/Vitale - The End of Policing (Police) (2017).pdf
- 《国家行动》 (National Action) by 程琳 (Cheng Lin) for fiction.
- We Own This City by Justin Fenton for non-fiction.
Sadly I seems to be unable to find National Action in english anywhere
I’m not sure it was ever translated. The general translation practice in publishing is English→Others because <sarcasm>we all know that only the English speaking world makes literature of merit</sarcasm>.
Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein
The TV series is pretty great
Strange Things Happen - Stewart Copeland
