POLICE BOOKS - Frank Hickey

Police Books

Frank Hickey

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Frank Hickey was a Los Angeles Police Officer. He said of his career, “For some reason, I am a writer who became a cop and not the other way around.

Probably, the other way is easier.

As a sworn armed District Attorney's Investigator/Police Officer, I served about nine years in New York City, investigating organized crime, serial murder and complex frauds. In the Los Angeles Police Department, I ran around twelve years in uniform in the Southwest and Hollenbeck divisions, initiating a one-person foot patrol program.

Prior to that, for three years, I had done patrol in the Savannah, Georgia Police Department and worked with others to introduce Community Policing there. I was never a soldier but was attached to the US Army as a Police Trainer and trained soldiers and police for five months, living under combat conditions."

Frank Hickey is the author of Real Cops, Dancing Max Hits Guadalcanal or When in Doubt, Love Finds Max Royster at Christmas or Kissing in the Slush After Sixty, Max Wisecracks Hollywood or Foxtrotting for Justice, When the Whistle Blows, Everyone Goes, Softening Flatbush, Can Showbizzers Crush Crime?, Brownstone Kidnap Crackup, Funny Bunny Hunts the Horn Bug and The Gypsy Twist.

According to the book description of Real Cops, “The Depression. America stops eating. Teachers drop in classrooms from hunger.Lee Childress, a 23-year-old farm boy turned lawyer cannot find work.

Nobody is hiring. The military refuses recruits. Lee discovers the small and little-known FBI. It is a mess. 266 virginal young lawyers and accountants, without guns or arrest powers, join cynical older agents. Thrown together, they hunt Tommy gun killers.

Honest folks and crooks together laugh at this baby FBI.Lee joins because he needs a job.Bank robbers rip open the Midwest. Kidnappings for ransom happen twice a day. Corrupt politicians control entire cities and protect gangsters hiding out.

Local police receive low pay and less support. They buy their own guns and use the family car for patrol. Their authority stops at the town line. The gangsters enjoy bulletproof cars, automatic weapons and networks of crooked lawyers and doctors to protect them.

The bank robber, Pretty Boy Floyd, kills cops in the Kansas City Massacre. Two veteran agents and Lee hunt Pretty Boy Floyd through the dark and isolated Ozark Mountains. They move undercover through villages that support Floyd as a Robin Hood.

The chase strains Lee's nerves. The agents hide, eat and sleep in secret. A mountain gunfight breaks out. The agents barely escape. The FBI boss, J. Edgar Hoover, vows to erase the killers like Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson. These killers write their names in blood on the streets. Lee descends into a nervous breakdown, wild sex and alcoholism, steeling himself for the final showdown."

According to the book description of Dancing Max Hits Guadalcanal or When in Doubt, Rhumba , "I, Max Royster, am teaching the crew of the good ship Laura Nyro how to rhumba when terrorist from the South Pacific island of Guadalcanal take my daughter hostage. Suddenly,I am her only hope of rescue.

According to the book description of Love Finds Max Royster at Christmas or Kissing in the Slush After Sixty “Cold grips Manhattan.

The city throws a Unity Holiday Party, a dancing street fair to bring all together. I, Max, 62, meet and flirt with a dark blonde beauty named Peg, a barmaid with no illusions left. Her looks and slangy streetwise talk hold me. At my age, she makes me smolder and feel 24 again.

No matter what it takes, I want her for mine.

But the plan smashes when a drunken Black man fights with a White rookie cop. The Black man dies and everyone hollers their own ideas about what really happened. Seeing a chance to hit big on a settlement, I summon Nancy, a hooligan street-fighter with a lawyer's ticket. This kind of death means cash.

Peg is the only witness to the struggle between the drunken man and the cop. If I can run this, I can stop hustling forever. Skip, another lawyer, Black, my nemesis-father figure, always scheming, hijacks Peg for his reward. His bodyguard, Joey, beats me in a fight.

The FBI and the radical group SAP -Stop Police Action- jump into this case. Trying to out-dance them, I go undercover in SAP and live like a radical. Through freezing stakeout nights and bitter dawns, I must find Peg and love at Christmas."

According to the book description of Max Wisecracks Hollywood or Foxtrotting for Justice, "I, Max Royster, cannot run fifty yards or see my own feet under a beer belly. Pushing 64-years old, I struggle to rebuild, after the New York cops fired me for depression and hijacked my pension. Like everything else sliding around loose, I wind up in Hollywood, California.

By chance, I see a female Black LAPD cop grapple with a homeless woman, an ex-Blaxploitation film actress who 40-years ago turned Civil Rights radical.

The homeless woman dies. Sidewalk Angelenos heave rocks and bottles in protest.

Los Angeles screams. Cops retreat and haul me to the station. An ambitious Deputy District Attorney and the hard-charging FBI play tug-of-war-witness over my fast-aging body. Everyone wants to jail me as a material witness for trial. To stay clear, I go underground with a cryptic Hollywood beauty and learn much on the floor of her apartment. The media turns up the heat. The G-men freeze my cash.

All that I have left are my wits and the cash in my bluejeans."

According to the book description of Can Showbizzers Crush Crime?, “ Can Max Royster, fired from the NYPD for mental disease, on crutches, train a ragtag group of performers, his Showbizzers, to use their skills and bodies to stop a genius crime lord in the High Desert town of Basta, California? ***** Bounced from the New York cops for mental disease and on crutches from rescuing a kidnapped debutante, I, Max Royster, cannot handle another Manhattan slush winter.

Freezing, grieving my lost shield, I hobble aboard an Amtrak train. America passes by outside my window. When we reach the California desert, my spirits rise. Hope for a new life makes me exit in the small sandy town of Basta. The sun and beauty cheer me. But the town suffers from crime. A thug mugs me, taking my cash and ID. That turns me sad again. A group that I dub "My Showbizzers" - out-of-work dancers, actresses, dog trainers and writers - rescue me. They remind me of my live-for-the-moment cronies back in Manhattan, "The Playpen Irregulars."

Thrilled by their energy, I fall in love with Koy, a beautiful Asian dog-handler. Some Basta deputies duck work or bully innocents. Their sloppiness angers and frustrates me, and their laziness helps a local criminal genius, Crostwaite, rob a bank. Inspiration hits me. My Showbizzers have many skills. Maybe they could use those talents and creativity to fight crime.

They might do better than some lazy deputies. Nobody else believes in my idea. Locals mock me. The sheriff and the FBI block me. But I force myself to push my idea forward, while my Showbizzers must fight their own bias against government and rules. But when Crostwaite starts killing, I train my Showbizzers. They go undercover. Their beautiful bodies use sex as a weapon. Koy trains dogs to burgle homes and seize evidence. To avenge his childhood of horrors, Crostwaite vows to destroy Basta. Frightened but passionate, without guns, power or respect, my Showbizzers and I risk everything to stop Crostwaite Our deadly showdown will answer the question once and for all: Can Showbizzers Crush Crime? "

According to the book description of Funny Bunny Hunts the Horn Bug, “To catch a sex killer targeting Upper East Side beauties, misfit NYPD cop Max Royer goes undercover...as an NYPD cop! "It's a great read. There is nothing fake about this book. It is authentic. The characters seem like real people that you'll never forget. The NYPD politics ring true, just as insane as when I was there. This book deserves to be read and re-read and studied as criminal justice literature." ~ Daniel Vona (Deputy Commissioner, NYPD [Ret.])"

According to the book description of The Gypsy Twist, “"Max looked carefully at the dead boy, reminding himself that most murder victims looked very young and surprised when their bodies were found, as if life had suddenly rushed up and taken them unawares." - Shattered after a gang attack in Central Park, misfit NYPD Officer Max Royster accepts a free-lance assignment to track down a serial killer preying upon wealthy private school students. In the course of his cross-country investigation, Max discovers that not all predators are born alike."

According to the book description of When the Whistle Blows, Everyone Goes, “Federal agents jail me for murder. That's me, Max Royster. Aging. Fat. Broke. And innocent. How do I clear myself from inside my cell? Nobody believes me. A hate group tries to rape and kill me. But Mother Royster always said to keep smiling no matter what. So to chase away the jailhouse blues, I organize a hipster group and swing dances among the inmates.”

According to the book description of Softening Flatbush, "I, Max Royster, fat, broke, divorced, thrown off the NYPD for mental illness. Now in Flatbush, Brooklyn, I find new love, new murder and new career. Can I keep my love? Crack the case? Can I inspire and change private security? And maybe regain my NYPD shield?

Flatbush, Brooklyn, a neighborhood that used to be the borough’s jewel.

Sixty years later, street crime plagues the area.

My love, Cooper, and her friends want to clean up the neighborhood and improve Flatbush’s image. That way, they can ‘flip’ their homes and triple their profits. I join a security agency, thinking I can transform the guards from unhappy minimum wage-earners to passionate, hardworking crime fighters.

If I succeed and make Flatbush safe for Cooper and her friends, we will buy a home there and enjoy a happy marriage. My new employees and I fight to take back the Flatbush streets. I give them better training, uniforms and weapons. The guards buff their new badges with pride.

My boyhood friends, out-of-work actresses, barflies and story-tellers, join us in our quest. But some guards refuse to let go of old vices. Others turn vigilante and bully innocents. Curbing their zeal, I try to teach them to uphold civil rights as I hunt the suspect in the comedian’s murder. Then, under cover of night, good and evil clash at the Lefferts Historic House.

Facing disgrace and prison, I must decide what matters most in life to me. Come walk with me on that razor edge between brutality and staying alive as Cooper and I, my Flippers and my guards give everything to try Softening Flatbush."

According to the book description of Brownstone Kidnap Crackup, "When Max witnesses a debutante’s kidnapping, he be-comes the FBI’s prime suspect. Or is he actually their salvation?

It’s Christmas in Manhattan. A blizzard whips the city. The Beautiful People, in the elite Upper East Side, celebrate in their brownstones. Until a kidnapper seizes a beautiful young debutante.

Max Royster, fired from the NYPD for mental illness, fights the kidnapper but loses. The kidnapper flees. Stripped of gun, shield and power, Max has only his wits to save the victim. The FBI treats Max like a suspect and tramples rough-shod on his rights. During this long sleepless night, an unknown FBI agent cracks up. Over the radio, he quotes J. Edgar Hoover and plants false clues.

To solve the case, Max must smash through the facade and mysteries of millionaires in their snug brownstones. Exotic women tempt him to give up. The blizzard worsens. As the winds howl and snowdrifts deepen, Max risks his life and his freedom in a desperate bid to save the victim.

Once again, Max Royster is back on the street in Brown-stone Kidnap Crackup."