Chris Berg

I received this book as an ARC from Smith Publicity, Inc., and am providing an honest review.
The best way I can describe The Night Police is that it is fiction written in the linear style of non-fiction, and I often found it difficult to determine which it was. But maybe that was the goal of the authors – to “make it real” for the reader.
The authors are former police officers who tell the stories of their experiences as “night police” through a series of vignettes. The stories involve a cast of characters who meet in their favorite hangout in a private room in a bar to swap tales and relive events of the past. The storytelling is lubricated by alcohol and full of good-natured teasing by the officers and friends. The characters are skillfully drawn as genuine and unique personalities, and each makes an appearance in most of the vignettes.
The book takes us into the seamy, dark world of policing after midnight in a fictional large Midwestern city. The authors pull no punches in graphically relating, and in vivid language, the situations they are called to deal with. Nothing is sanitized for squeamish readers.
This is true crime, fictionalized, at its best. But it’s not a novel. It’s a collection of stories.
Authors Chris Berg and Paul James Smith promise that this is only the first installment of The Night Police. Fans of gritty true crime will enjoy the stories of these men who thrived on finding and dealing with some of the messiest crimes in the city.… (mere)