I’ve often fantasised about writing a police procedural series. Sometimes the fantasy gets to the point where I start sketching out ideas, but invariably I come up against the double problem of my ignorance of how the police actually proceed and my private veto against fiction requiring serious research. So I stop. But something made me try again, and a few months ago I came home from my local Barnes and Noble with a stack of books about US law enforcement. I now know all about Luminol, Spiral Search Patterns and Bindle Paper. I understand the protocols of Search and Seizure. I’m up on Curtilage and the Exclusionary Rule, I can inform you about the finer points of hierarchy in a Detective Division and I can read Spatter.

LRB 8 September 2011 | PDF Download