The most recommended books about sergeants

I'm completely charmed by Peter Grainger's D.C. Smith, a seemingly (but only seemingly) mild-mannered police detective whose understated style and sly humor remind me of John le Carré's George Smiley. This book, although part of a series, is close to being a stand-alone, with Smith far from home and work.

Thirty years earlier, Smith was a British officer in Belfast, undercover with the IRA. He barely escaped with his life when his cover was blown, and he's had no contact with anyone there since, including people he'd grown to love. That changes when a young Belfastian tracks him down, blaming him for the disappearance (unbeknownst to Smith) of his uncle right after Smith fled. Smith returns to Belfast to try to discover what happened that night.

The story emerges as Smith risks his life to confront and question members of the IRA cell he betrayed.

I very much doubt that Reginald Hill intended Pictures of Perfection to appear on a Best M/M list! It’s a quintessentially English tale with a backdrop of class-based snobbery and the threat to rural life from development. It’s also the sole book in Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe mystery series wherein Hill’s gay detective sergeant, Edgar Wield, takes centre stage. Wield finds more than a missing policeman when he’s sent to the village of Enscombe! Nothing to worry even the most sex-repulsed asexual here although, with hindsight, these stories can seem problematic in other ways: Dalziel is so non-woke. However, it was being a fan of Wield and Hill’s books that got me writing my own gay mysteries, so I’m ever grateful.

One of my writing mentors says, “history is the trade secret of science fiction.” They’re not wrong—my own work is based on Irish history—and Tanya Huff’s A Confederation of Valor series, beginning with Valor’s Choice, is another in that vein. The series centers on marine sergeant Torin Kerr. In these books, humans and two other races were brought into the peaceful Confederation to fight a war. What I love about this book is the way the various new races work together—each has their own idiosyncrasies, and Torin, whose job it is to keep her people alive in the middle of this war, is an expert at dealing with the varying needs of her soldiers, whether they’re human, Krai, or Taykan. This is a series about living with others in peace, even in the middle of a war. 

This is a self-published author, who I’m glad I discovered. The characters she paints are really intriguing and likeable.

I loved how their professions interlinked and the crimes being investigated became a shared mission. The characters bounce off each other well, too. The criminal in the book was also fascinating to spend time with and I kept turning the pages to get to the end!

Derek Raymond’s 4th book in his Factory Series is sublimely dark and poetic. It’s brit-grit with an industrial, dirty backdrop and hard feel. Some lines are funny in their harshness with a cliched bad PI turned up to max.

This is a British hard-boiled, hard-drinking, and damaged detective with all the atmosphere of a French noir clashing with Ted Lewis’ Get Carter.

I Was Dora Suarez is a prime example of brit-noir with a flawed protagonist chasing clues and signs in an equally damaged world. Despite the bleakness of the characters and situations it’s impossible not to be gripped and have your face thrust against the glass to see.

I always want to read a good story, but the characters must be compelling. The protagonist in this book is Leona Reese, a sergeant in the Saint Paul police department. She’s worked hard for that position, but when she ignores her vision problems and fails her shooting range test, she’s reassigned to another unit.

In her new assignment, she works with Thom, another investigator who is wheelchair-bound. He has an off-beat sense of humor about his condition, which adds humor to an otherwise serious book. Those bits of humor play off nicely against Leo’s ongoing vision problems while they work together to solve a murder. There are two books in this series, and I’ve heard a third one is in the works. It’ll be worth the wait.

In this ninth installment of the Inspector Lynley series, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers is recovering from a broken nose and ribs she earned on the job.

Throughout the series, Havers, has become friendly with the neighbors who lives in the front house, single father Taymullah Azhar, and his eight-year-old daughter Khalidah Hadiyyah. After the book’s opening scene of murder, there’s this lovely moment where Havers and Hadiyyah discuss the latter’s invitation to take the police detective for ice cream.

The little girl comes over, reads about ‘throbbing members’ in one of Haver’s romance novels, then announces she has to take back her invitation because she and her father are traveling to an Essex seaside town.

This scene, and this book, really delve into the relationship between a motherless girl and a loner cop, two people who unexpectedly need each other.

Platinga is a sergeant with the San Francisco police department. I love his book because so many of the stories are similar to ones that I experienced as a cop. It brought back some good and some not-so-good memories.

You don’t have to be a cop or a former cop to love the read, though. It’s not only a great reference book for crime writers who want to learn and add authenticity to what they’re writing but also a wonderful read for those who want to take a wild ride inside a cop’s head during the course of their tour of duty.

I picked this up cheaply in a second-hand bookstore. What a bargain it was. It introduced me to Detective Sergeant Washington (there is a subplot here) Poe of the National Crime Agency’s Serious Crime Analysis Section and his offsider Matilda ‘Tilly’ Bradshaw, a brilliant mathematician and programmer extraordinaire.

I immediately spent much more per copy (see homo economicus in my third choice entry) buying all of Craven’s books: and consuming (I am an economist at heart) them avidly.

I appreciated the anti-authority stance of Detective Poe but fell in love with the socially naïve Tilly: it was good to see a role-model female geek taking center stage.

The writing is outstanding: the darkest crimes are lightened by humor, and clever solutions are thrown by unexpected twists.

I rode the New York City subways on a daily or more frequent basis as a kid and through my 20s. There’s a culture all its own on those subway platforms and trains – do you hold the door open, and how long for people rushing to board in rush hour? Do you eat a slice of pizza on the train? Do you complain when someone squeezes into the seat you’re sitting in? 

R. J. Nobleman treats us to the treasure trove of his own experience in this under- and above-ground world, and will have you laughing, shaking your head in disbelief, and even sometimes crying.