D. Clayton Mayes retired from the Los Angels Police Department after 26 years on the job and then became Chief of Police for the Downey, CA Police Department. A respected educator and speaker, Mayas has penned his first book, More Than Money.
Listed as a police novel, More Than Money reads more like a personal memoir. We follow Brad Phillips from his first days on the job until past his retirement. Along the way Brad faces different situations that require courage, honesty, and quick thinking as well as
ethical decisions. The book is interesting in its revelations about police work and it handles the moral issues and ethical decisions faced by police with clarity and integrity.
What is best about this book is sometimes also a handicap. The book is full of first-hand information that makes the reader more cognizant of the world of the men in blue, but at the same time the use of police jargon and insider insights looses the reader in places. The book also reads like stream of conscience in several chapters, skipping from one incident to the next (and sometimes skipping years) with little or no segue, particularly when Phillips reminisces about his flying experiences.
While the book was written as a work of fiction, it is obvious the writer has first-hand experience with the many experiences of the protagonist. I found myself wishing more than once that Mayes had skipped the fiction and gone straight to writing his own memoirs.
