My Why

I have started on this literary venture with a desire to show my readers the humanity behind the badge. Hundreds of movies, TV series, and novels depict dark, gritty homicide detectives who power through life like battering rams, forcing their way through whatever is necessary to close the case. Few depict what it's truly like to do the job.

Though I won't argue there are significant issues in law enforcement, I have found the vast majority of law enforcement officers to be noble, selfless human beings who are doing their best to do their job and get out alive. That applies both mentally, physically, and emotionally. I've worked in and around law enforcement for the last seventeen years and have both seen and felt the toll it takes.

I have known many solid individuals who started the job with the best intentions, but get carried away by the flood of emotion and tragedy they deal with every day. Police Officers, in almost every encounter, deal with the public on their worst days. The officers are there to experience the pain along with them. I have seen marriages fail, dependence on alcohol and drugs and even a few that took their lives because of the job. Depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and addiction are all normal parts of every day life for most law enforcement officers.

Movies and TV shows the late-night callouts, but don't show the insomnia and dependence on sleep aids that often follow years of interrupted sleep. Homicide detectives, especially, fall victim to these interruptions. Each scene they attend is the violent end to someone's life. A day with their families is often interrupted by work calls or by the intrusion of images, sights, or sounds that return as they drive past an old scene.

My new Jameson Greer series will take readers along for the ride as Detective Greer navigates the highs and lows of homicide work. For there is no greater high than catching a killer, and no greater low than sitting with a mother and telling her her child is never coming home. Of all the jobs one can do in law enforcement, I believe homicide work to be the most noble. Detectives walk alongside victims' families through days, weeks, and even years of the investigation or court process. Detectives are often the only people, other than the victim's family, who care about what happened to their loved ones. Carrying this burden is the sacred duty of the homicide detective, and it should not be taken lightly.

I hope each of you enjoys the book coming out this summer, and feels the passion and dedication needed by homicide detectives to close a case.

Sincerely,

Grant Winchester