JIMMY THE WAGS

Wagner represents a dying breed in contemporary law enforcement: the maverick, street-schooled, older cop who winds up operating within and beyond legal boundaries. His antic memoir of high times and a hard fall as a P.I., while simply plotted and occasionally clichÇd, provides an entertaining, perceptive study of moral ambiguity and the secret underworld of urban violence. Wagner retired after 22 years as a decorated New York cop, and what started as a simple pension augmentation soon transformed him into a flashy player in the intentionally obscure world of security consulting. The episodic narrative depicts various exploits in which he protects coked-up Saudi princes and turncoat gunrunners, conducts illegal rescues of children spirited abroad in custody disputes, and troubleshoots an upscale strip club that draws the unwelcome attentions of the Mob. This structure feels casual and sometimes even tacked together, but it must be said that many of the episodes are tense and exciting, particularly the chaotic commando-style raids of the child rescues and a scary fistfight between Wagner and a Russian hit man that recalls an Elmore Leonard interlude. The prose is workmanlike, but the book satisfies with its acute details and Wagner’s caustic wit As cops privately will, Wagner crudely skewers most everyone in his way: inept FBI agents, Mafia goombahs, stool pigeons and their harridan wives. Yet his capacity to note the subtle absurdities of situations both banal and dangerous elevates this above the level of mere dreary war stories. Jimmy the Wags is also distinguished from the recent slew of middle-aged career-crash memoirs by the experienced eye it turns upon the unsettling relationship between real cops, private security, and the professional crooks who are their supposed adversaries. Serious students of criminal justice and casual true-crime fans alike will thus find more than just entertainment here.