4 ms·

I enjoy the Wambaugh I’ve read, but I had some issues with this article. Version_five is right about Martin Beck. (I wouldn’t count Maigret or Chandler as “pol

I enjoy the Wambaugh I’ve read, but I had some issues with this article. Version_five is right about Martin Beck. (I wouldn’t count Maigret or Chandler as “police procedurals”.) Also on the list and predating Wambaugh: Ed McBain’s “87th Precinct” novels. First one published in 1956, last one in 2005.

version_five 3y ago
I've not read McBain, I'll have to take a look. I'm on the fence about Maigret. There is definitely an element of what I consider police procedural in there, though I agree they wouldn't be exemplars for the genre. What's the one where there is a killer, I think he ends up being some kind of "architect designer" and they get a female cop to lure him out somehow. That's almost the same story as Roseanna. On the other hand, in some of the books he just sits in a bar all day.
jjtheblunt 3y ago
Do Sherlock Holmes stories not count?
- Insanity 3y ago
  In spirit, I would agree they should count. But on a technicality, Holmes helps the police but is not part of the police.
- kadoban 3y ago
  > It is a story of police brutality, racism, public unrest, systemic rot, poverty, and the seemingly everlasting tension between American police departments and the communities they are supposed to protect and serve. Doesn't exactly sound like the Sherlock Holmes I remember. Which is to say that despite both being centered around crime and mystery solving, they're really quite different.
- rob74 3y ago
  Sherlock Holmes (and Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot and others) are the polar opposite of a "modern cop novel": > The criminals in classic crime novels generally have motives and make plans and think everything through in advance. The crime fighters in those books, on the other hand, generally solve every case. Wambaugh’s cops are faced with a starker reality. They are patrolmen. They don’t investigate murders. But this dichotomy is visible in most crime literature/media until today. For example, the "Law & Order" franchise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_%26_Order_(franchise) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_%26_Order_(franchise)) is mostly police procedural, but in the "Criminal Intent" spin-off they went back to classic "detective stories".
  - Karellen 3y ago
    > For example, the "Law & Order" franchise [...] is mostly police procedural I think it's worth making more of a distinction between the different shows in the franchise. One thing I really like about "classic" Law & Order is that it's half police procedural, and half... not just courtroom drama, but the drama behind the courtroom drama. And it follows a case all the way through from discovery to conviction/acquittal. Whereas I'm not nearly as much of a fan of SVU, as it is mostly just another police procedural. (With the disturbing "unorthodox cops who have to bend the rules to get the job done" vibes, which really should have non-ironically gone out of fashion for good some time in the mid-'90s.) I'd not checked out Criminal Intent, because I was figured it would just be more like SVU, but if it's more of a "detective story" than "police procedural", I might try to find time to give it a shot.
- mellosouls 3y ago
  No, I'm a massive Holmes fan but I think he fits almost into the superhero genre. While the more abstract elements of puzzle-cracking are brilliantly elaborated within a legal mystery framing in the Sherlock universe, I would say police procedures themselves are barely to be seen except where he benevolently tolerates or accedes to them at the request of others. Investigative rigor and procedure are common to both forms, but the police procedural itself has a considerably wider remit I think that even the classic lone wolf cop fits into in a way that types like Holmes and modern successors like Jack Reacher do not.

version_five 3y ago

I've not read McBain, I'll have to take a look. I'm on the fence about Maigret. There is definitely an element of what I consider police procedural in there, though I agree they wouldn't be exemplars for the genre. What's the one where there is a killer, I think he ends up being some kind of "architect designer" and they get a female cop to lure him out somehow. That's almost the same story as Roseanna. On the other hand, in some of the books he just sits in a bar all day.

jjtheblunt 3y ago

Do Sherlock Holmes stories not count?

Insanity 3y ago
In spirit, I would agree they should count. But on a technicality, Holmes helps the police but is not part of the police.
kadoban 3y ago
> It is a story of police brutality, racism, public unrest, systemic rot, poverty, and the seemingly everlasting tension between American police departments and the communities they are supposed to protect and serve. Doesn't exactly sound like the Sherlock Holmes I remember. Which is to say that despite both being centered around crime and mystery solving, they're really quite different.
rob74 3y ago
Sherlock Holmes (and Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot and others) are the polar opposite of a "modern cop novel": > The criminals in classic crime novels generally have motives and make plans and think everything through in advance. The crime fighters in those books, on the other hand, generally solve every case. Wambaugh’s cops are faced with a starker reality. They are patrolmen. They don’t investigate murders. But this dichotomy is visible in most crime literature/media until today. For example, the "Law & Order" franchise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_%26_Order_(franchise) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_%26_Order_(franchise)) is mostly police procedural, but in the "Criminal Intent" spin-off they went back to classic "detective stories".
- Karellen 3y ago
  > For example, the "Law & Order" franchise [...] is mostly police procedural I think it's worth making more of a distinction between the different shows in the franchise. One thing I really like about "classic" Law & Order is that it's half police procedural, and half... not just courtroom drama, but the drama behind the courtroom drama. And it follows a case all the way through from discovery to conviction/acquittal. Whereas I'm not nearly as much of a fan of SVU, as it is mostly just another police procedural. (With the disturbing "unorthodox cops who have to bend the rules to get the job done" vibes, which really should have non-ironically gone out of fashion for good some time in the mid-'90s.) I'd not checked out Criminal Intent, because I was figured it would just be more like SVU, but if it's more of a "detective story" than "police procedural", I might try to find time to give it a shot.
mellosouls 3y ago
No, I'm a massive Holmes fan but I think he fits almost into the superhero genre. While the more abstract elements of puzzle-cracking are brilliantly elaborated within a legal mystery framing in the Sherlock universe, I would say police procedures themselves are barely to be seen except where he benevolently tolerates or accedes to them at the request of others. Investigative rigor and procedure are common to both forms, but the police procedural itself has a considerably wider remit I think that even the classic lone wolf cop fits into in a way that types like Holmes and modern successors like Jack Reacher do not.