Review: Wolf With a Badge

 

John Wolf’s thirty years in law enforcement provide the material for this candid collection of stories from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. The calls range from dangerous pursuits and unsettling discoveries to moments of absurdity that could only happen on the job. Wolf tells them in a direct, conversational voice, often with the dark humor he and his colleagues used to get through a shift.

The book is most affecting when a call continues to follow Wolf long after it ends. In “Merry Christmas,” a holiday song becomes inseparable from a family’s tragedy. Elsewhere, he describes the constant watchfulness of patrol work, his frustration with departmental politics, and the mixed emotions of finally turning in his badge. These reflections give the collection a shape beyond its individual incidents: they show what thirty years of responding to other people’s worst days can do to a person.

Some stories are harrowing and graphically described. Readers may also find Wolf’s blunt judgments and occasional digressions harder to take than his firsthand accounts. His perspective is unmistakably his own, and the book is strongest when he lets a scene and its lasting effect speak for themselves.

Wolf With a Badge will appeal to readers interested in police memoirs and the human cost of public service. Its most memorable insight is that a shift can end while the memory of it stays.


Amazon Review

https://www.amazon.com/review/R10DKR4N52PWLJ/ref=pe_123899240_1043597390_SRTC_02_04_BT_99_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv



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