Book details

A Cop's Life

True Stories from the Heart Behind the Badge

Author: Sgt. Randy Sutton; Edited by Cassie Wells

A Cop's Life

A Cop's Life

$22.99

About This Book

A COP'S LIFE...
is about a midnight call that brings you to a grandmother battered to death in her bed while three punks go running and laughing through the night....

Page Count
288
On Sale
08/01/2006

Book Details

A COP'S LIFE...
is about a midnight call that brings you to a grandmother battered to death in her bed while three punks go running and laughing through the night....

A COP'S LIFE...
is about the man in the Ninja outfit who absorbs a full magazine of hollowpoint bullets and still raises his gun to kill you...

A COP'S LIFE...
is about the honor student, the pride and hope of his family, hanging from a speaker wire, or the baby who dies in your arms, or the people who think you're a hero—or the devil...

In this powerful collection of tales from the frontlines, Las Vegas police sergeant Randy Sutton goes beyond the neon into the dark corners of society, putting us into the driver's seat of his cruiser and a job that ricochets from moments of sheer terror to coffee-fueled boredom—with stops on the way at every conceivable act of human folly and depravity. With a poet's touch, and the unflinching realism of a crime scene photograph, A COP'S LIFE is the ultimate depiction of the hardest job there is.

"Brilliantly evokes the tormented inner life of the average cop."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A compelling, sometimes wrenching, always insightful read that takes us into the soul of a working cop."
--John Lescroart, New York Times bestselling author of The Second Chair and The Motive

Imprint Publisher

St. Martin's Griffin

ISBN

9781250038739

In The News

“With a novelist's skill, Sutton makes fresh situations that could, in lesser hands, come across as hoary clichés. The broken lives Sutton encounters--the suicides, gangbangers, the mentally ill, the burnt-out officers tempted to eat their guns and the innocents in the wrong place at the wrong time--come vividly to life...unflinchingly portrays the stresses that plague him when his best efforts to protect or save lives fell short.” —Publishers Weekly

“Las Vegas police sergeant tells it like it is in 20 brief tales from the beat and wins wide acclaim for his honesty and his craftsmanship.” —The Atlanta Journal Constitution

“Another gritty, intimate look at the day-to-day life of the cop on the beat, going behind the investigations and arrests to reveal the truly funny and weird things that can, and often do, happen to cops in the line of duty…[a] powerful and emotionally charged book…filled with real-life stories that are touching, harrowing, and haunting…the next best thing to actually being in a patrol car with a cop on duty, and better and more real than any screenplay or work of fiction.” —King Features Syndicate

“Brilliantly evokes the tormented inner life of the average cop…with a novelist's skill, Sutton makes fresh situations that could, in lesser hands, come across as hoary clichés…poignant and well-written tales of the real world of policing.” —American Police Beat

“Compelling.” —Las Vegas City Life

“Randy Sutton has written a powerful firsthand account of the life of a street cop that will give you a glimpse into a world about which the average citizen knows absolutely nothing.” —Phillip M. Margolin, New York Times best-selling author of Sleeping Beauty and Lost Lake

A Cop's Life is a compelling, sometimes wrenching, always insightful read that takes us into the soul of a working cop. Randy Sutton has lived it all from the idealistic dream to the alcohol-haunted nightmare, and he lays it all out in prose that marks him a true craftsman. The last chapter, The Messenger, bears comparison with O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi for all-time terrific Christmas tear-jerker. I highly recommend this book.” —John Lescroart, New York Times best-selling author of The Second Chair and The Motive

“Randy Sutton's A Cop's Life is a remarkably honest, insightful, and moving account of its subject. Where do these men and women get their courage, how do they maintain their hope, what keeps them from writing in the face of the worst tragedies life can dish out? Read the book and Sutton will show you. Like the cops themselves, you'll be crushed by the horror of incidents like those recounted in ‘My Child' and ‘The Man of the House,' then uplifted--hell, redeemed--by magic moments like the one Sutton describes with affecting grace in ‘The Journey.' This is a stunningly good book by a gifted writer. Thanks, Randy, for lifting away the badge and exposing the enormous heart behind it.” —Barry Eisler, author of Rain Storm and Hard Rain

About the Creators

A Cop's Life

A Cop's Life

$22.99