Every shift in law enforcement ends with a report. It goes into a file, the file goes into a drawer, and almost nobody reads it again.
A thirty-year career in policing produces thousands of those reports, and the most valuable things in it never make it onto paper at all. The judgment call at three in the morning with half the facts. The decision that kept a bad night from becoming a funeral. The way a department changed because one leader refused to let it stay the same. When the badge goes in the drawer, most of that knowledge goes with it.
A book is the one report people choose to read. It’s also the one most law enforcement leaders never get around to writing.
Why do sheriffs and police chiefs hire a ghostwriter?
Because they have the story and none of the time.
A sheriff runs an agency, answers to voters and spends evenings at community meetings. A police chief answers to a city manager, a council and the public at once. Neither has a spare year to sit at a keyboard, and most of them will tell you writing isn’t their skill.
The ones who did write books mostly had help. Bill Bratton, who ran police departments in Boston, Los Angeles and New York, wrote both Turnaround and The Profession with the writer Peter Knobler. Former Dallas Chief David Brown wrote Called to Rise with Michelle Burford. Look at the spines of law enforcement memoirs and you’ll see the word “with” again and again. That’s a professional collaborator, and nobody thinks less of the author for it.
Others wrote their own. Nat Glover, the first Black sheriff elected in Florida since Reconstruction, published Striving for Justice about his years leading the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman turned his approach into a leadership guide, STEP-UP and LEAD. Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly wrote Vigilance, and former Seattle Chief Carmen Best wrote Black in Blue.
That’s a short shelf for a big profession. (See also Norm Stamper’s Breaking Rank)
The National Sheriffs’ Association counts 3,081 sheriffs in the country, and Florida alone has 67, one for every county. Add police chiefs, undersheriffs, majors and retired command staff, and the number of leaders with a book in them runs well into the tens of thousands.
What kind of book should a sheriff or police chief write with a ghostwriter?
It depends on what the book is for. Four kinds come up again and again.
The leadership book takes what a sheriff learned about running people under pressure and turns it into something a manager in any field can use. Chapman’s book is that kind. So is most of what Bratton wrote. (See also Bratton and Tumin’s Collaborate or Perish!) It sells to readers outside policing, and it’s the book that gets a retired leader speaking invitations.
The career memoir tells the story of the job: the first patrol, the cases that stayed with you, the promotions, the losses. It’s written for the public, for younger officers and for family. Glover’s book is that kind, and so is Kelly’s. The agency history records how a department grew from a few deputies and a jail into what it is now. Foundations and retirees’ associations pay for many of them, and they preserve names and events nobody else will write down.
The crisis book covers one event in depth, the way Brown’s book covers the 2016 attack on Dallas officers. It’s the hardest kind to write, and it can matter most.
A good ghostwriter will ask which one you want before writing a word, because the answer decides the structure, the tone and who the book is for.
| Book type | What it covers | Who it’s for | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leadership book | Lessons on running people under pressure | Managers in any field; leads to speaking invitations | Chapman’s STEP-UP and LEAD |
| Career memoir | First patrol, cases that stayed with you, promotions, losses | The public, younger officers, family | Glover’s Striving for Justice; Kelly’s Vigilance |
| Agency history | How a department grew into what it is now | Often funded by foundations and retirees’ associations | Preserves names nobody else will record |
| Crisis book | One event in depth | Readers of the hardest, most important stories | Brown’s Called to Rise |
How does a ghostwriter work with a sheriff who has no time?
Through conversation. I build every book from recorded interviews, an hour or two at a time, in person, on Zoom or by phone. A leader who can’t spare a weekend can spare an hour on a Tuesday.
It starts with an hour-long kickoff where we decide what the book is for and who it’s for. Then come the interviews. I ask about the same event more than once and from different directions, because memory blends years together and shrinks or inflates moments. Getting the account straight is part of my job. After each session the client gets a written summary. From there it goes chapter by chapter: I write one, the client reads it and marks changes, and we move on. Nobody ever gets handed a finished manuscript they’ve never seen.
Short recorded sessions and chapter-by-chapter review let a working sheriff build a book an hour at a time.
Law enforcement leaders are good at this.
They’ve spent a career giving clear, factual accounts of what happened and why. They’re less used to being asked how it felt. The best chapters come out of that question.
Every shift ends with a report nobody reads again. A sheriff’s book is the one report people choose to read, and most law enforcement leaders never get around to writing it. – Richard LoweShare on X
What can’t go in a ghostwritten law enforcement book?
More than in most memoirs, and the limits matter.
Open and pending cases stay out entirely. So do details that would identify informants, juveniles and victims who never chose to be public. Anything learned under a confidentiality obligation stays out too. Many agencies have written policies on outside writing and publishing, and a retired officer can still be bound by agreements signed years ago. Federal service brings its own prepublication review rules. A deputy’s notes from a case twenty years old can still identify a witness who moved away and started over.
I tell every client at the kickoff never to tell me anything they don’t want in the book. Months later I won’t remember which story was private. If a conversation drifts into material that can’t be published, I stop and we find a printable way to tell it.
I’ve also turned work down. A retired FBI informant once offered me the biggest project of my career to write a book naming mafia figures. I declined.
I kind of like to be breathing.
Every law enforcement book should get a lawyer’s read before it goes to a publisher, and anything naming real people deserves a second look.
Can a sitting sheriff publish a ghostwritten book while in office?
Yes, but with care.
I tell every client at the kickoff never to tell me anything they don’t want in the book.
A sitting sheriff is an elected official, so the book has to be handled with the state’s ethics rules on outside income, use of agency resources and use of the office in mind. Interviews should happen on personal time. Agency photographs and records need permission. If the book comes out near an election, ethics counsel should look at the timing and how it’s promoted.
Many leaders avoid all of it by waiting. They record the interviews while they’re still serving, when the details are fresh, and publish after they leave office. That’s a perfectly good plan, as long as the waiting doesn’t become never.
Should a ghostwritten law enforcement book credit the ghostwriter?
That’s the author’s call.
Some leaders put “with” and the writer’s name on the cover, the way Bratton and Brown did. Former Michigan sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth went further: 50 Years of Duty names its ghostwriter on the book. Others keep the collaboration private. Both are honest, because the book is built from the author’s own experience, judgment and words. I write in the client’s voice and keep the arrangement confidential unless they decide otherwise.
For a book meant to establish a leader as an authority, the “with” credit can help. It tells readers a professional shaped the book, and it frees the author to talk about the content without pretending to have spent a year typing.
My take
Record the interviews while you’re still serving and the details are fresh. You can publish after you leave office if ethics counsel says that’s cleaner. Keep open cases, informants and victims out, and get permission for agency records. Decide on the credit early, since a with credit on the cover can help a book meant to build authority. The one plan I’d warn against is waiting so long that later turns into never.
Where should a law enforcement leader start a ghostwritten book?
Start before you retire, if you can.
The stories are sharper and the people who were there are still around to confirm them. If you’ve already retired, start now.
I live in Safety Harbor, in the middle of Pinellas County, and I’m writing profiles of sheriffs and law enforcement leaders across Tampa Bay and beyond. That includes the Polk County sheriff on my Polk County ghostwriter page, and police leaders like the former officer I interviewed on Leaders and Their Stories. Officers, deputies and firefighters writing about their own careers will find more in hiring a ghostwriter for a first responder’s memoir.
If you’re ready to talk about your book, my ghostwriting service covers the whole project, and the Book Discovery Intensive is the place to start if you’re not sure yet what the book should be. The rest of the ghostwriting hub covers cost, contracts and process. You’ve written thousands of reports. Write the one people will read.
Leaders who want a book without writing it themselves can start with The Ghostwriting Advantage, my guide to getting your book written for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
- FAQ, National Sheriffs’ Association
- The Profession, Penguin Random House
