by Erika Livingstone

Created on: August 04, 2009

"Author Stops Riot, Saves Baby."

The Wolf and the Sheepdog is a non-fiction memoir in the form of several short stories written under a pseudonym. The author, a police officer in a major Canadian city, writes about his first five years on the street.

The notable effect of the narration is the honesty with which it is written. John Smith does not make assumptions about what other people are doing while he is doing his job; there aren't any cut scenes. It is very much an internal play-by-play of some of the most frightening situation anyone is meant to get themselves into in any line of work. The effect is quite like reading someone's diary. It even goes so far as to describe in detail the effect of adrenaline during a confrontation.

The book itself is halfway to becoming a Canadian bestseller, as of August 2009. This feat is surprising considering the attempts of some police departments discouraging police officers of other cities to obtain or read the book. Some departments have even gone so far as to squelch the memoir's publicity for fear that it makes the police service appear unprofessional.

The material in the memoirs, as stated, is quite honest, and therefore makes no excuses for several touchy subjects. Of course, the most prevalent is that of police brutality. Now, this is one of the few cases where the officer is allowed to describe the event (and it is indeed blow by blow) and also the legal parameters of acceptable suspect handling. For instance, the current expectation for the arrest of a suspect is, more or less, to subdue the suspect by any means necessary if he or she struggles. While this looks like abuse while caught on Youtube with four police officers beating one lone man on the highway of Austin Texas, Smith describes the importance of this leeway in terms of the officer's safety as it also pertains to his ability to do his job.

In the short story "On the Mall", Smith describes the arrest of a career criminal and drug addict named Tyler. Smith and his partner come across Tyler as he is laying in the middle of an outdoor mall at night with drug paraphrenalia around his unconscious body. The officers do not know what kind of drug Tyler has ingested, or if he is holding any knives, guns, needles, or other weapons. When the officers attempt to take Tyler into custody for public drug use, he springs to life in a paranoid and chemical fuelled frenzy so intense, he is able to lift Smith up off the ground with one arm. It is acceptable to

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