COP WRITERS ~ JOHN WAINWRIGHT
For many people, examples of cops-turned-writers begin and
end with Joe Wambaugh. There is no doubt the impact Wambaugh’s The New Centurions, The Blue Knight, and his non-fiction opus, The Onion Field, had not just on mystery fiction, but on literature
in general—as have his many other novels. However, while Wambaugh is the star
in the constellation, there have been a great number of cops-turned-writers
both before and since Wambaugh’s star began to rise—including my own
contributions to the genre.
One of the most prolific and best is now sadly out of print
and almost forgotten. In 1947, after serving in the RAF as a rear-gunner in
Number Five Bomber Command, John Wainwright join the West Riding Constabulary in
northern England (near Harrogate). His career as a police constable and a
detective spanned twenty years and six murder inquiries. The first of his eighty crime novels was published in
1965. He retired from the police two years later to write full time.
I’ve long been a fan of Wainwright, owning most of his
novels and both of his autobiographies. Recently, I took down and read his last
novel, The Life and Times of Christmas
Calvert Assassin, published in 1995 shortly before his death. I was suddenly
captivated by the immediacy of his writing and the humanity of his characters
and realized anew how good a storyteller Wainwright was. As soon as I finished,
I went back and reread two of my favorite Wainwright novels, Blayde R.I.P and The Ride, and found they still had all the power and readability I
remembered.

In the sixties, the Mecca of aspiring British mystery
writers was a tiny London office
hidden away in the former palace of
St. James. To
get to it, you were forced to climb
a steep, rickety, staircase before opening the door with a knob likely to remain in your hand. However, inside the unassuming walls, the editor of the
Collins Crime Club, Lord Hardinge, oversaw the massively
popular monthly publication of two yellow jacketed
novels from the likes of mystery mainstays such as Agatha
Christie, Julian Symons, Ngaio Marsh, Rex Stout,
and occasionally the debut of a new talent.
It was here Wainwright’s first novel, Death in a Sleeping City, found a home after literary agent John
McLaughlin insisted Hardinge read it. Hardinge was entranced not just by the
sheer storytelling power of the story (regarding a Mafia hitman sent to the
English provinces to kill a traitor), but particularly by Wainwright’s ability
to utilize his knowledge of real police and their methods.

Joe Wambaugh classically turned the censure of his
writing career by the LAPD into a cause célèbre, bringing incalculable
publicity to the beginnings of his bestseller status. Like Wambaugh, Wainwright
was also boycotted by his superiors in the police force. Already in
difficulties for his refusal to let a County Councilor off on a dangerous
driving charge, Wainwright was told he had to stop writing after his first
novel appeared in bookstores.
As Wainwright tells it, “[The deputy police chief] told me I had to stop
writing. I replied he could not
order me to stop, because there
was nothing in police regulations prohibiting
me. In any case, I
had already signed a contract for
three books, so I continued
to write and to be a cop.”
By the time he was on his fourth novel, the stress of the
two professions took its toll and Wainwright was forced to make a choice. “I had no hesitation and
took off the uniform. Then,
Avis [Wainwright’s wife] and I bought a small bungalow in Flamborough [on England’s east coast]
and the enormity of
what I had done struck me and I realized I now had to write for a living.”

His agent, John McLaughlin stated, "Wainwright’s novels are always different.
Every time I read
a new one, I expect to be in for a predictable story,
and invariably I'm wrong. I am constantly surprised by their freshness
and imaginative power."
It a rare interview with an Italian magazine, Wainwright
gives his own explanation for his success. "I have written sixty novels,” he said at the time, “but I threw away the
equivalent of sixty more. My
thing is not the traditional mystery
of who-done-it. I do not care about mysterious footprints in the flower beds, or the Lord found dead
on the floor of the library because someone has
launched a poisoned dart through the keyhole. I write suspense, I deal with the why-did-it. That's what fascinates me, always has fascinated me since
I was a cop.”
Finding Wainwright’s books today takes a few keystrokes
to navigate the Internet’s used bookstore sites, but they are well worth the
effort for those looking for well written stories based in the reality of
gritty, real life, procedures.
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