A new review of Martin Prieb’s The Wagon and Other Stories from the City that ran in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal begins:

Police thrillers are so widely read and police dramas so commonplace on television that many people think they have a good understanding of what a cop’s world is like. But in truth that world is seldom revealed with anything approaching verisimilitude. We get it with “The Wagon.”

Commenting on the first story in the collection the review continues:

As with police work itself, the book is only sporadically about gunfights, car chases and collaring criminals. Any television show that depicted the tedium of a police officer’s typical day wouldn’t draw much of an audience. In truth, most cops go through their entire careers without firing their weapon except on the practice range, but almost all of them are sooner or later called to deal with a dead body. Every cop, no matter how many he has encountered since, remembers his first one.
But few cops are able to describe that rite of passage as convincingly as Mr. Preib does in “Body Bags.”

And if won’t take the WSJ‘s word for it you can see for yourself by navigating to the Press website where you can find the full text of “Body Bags” online or listen to a podcast featuring a reading and interview with the author.
Continue reading the WSJ review.