Jill Levoy
In Jill Leovy’s searing essay for The Atlantic, “America Is Having a Showboater Moment,” (paywall) the former crime reporter offers not only a critique of modern American policing but, inadvertently or not, a field manual for the conscientious crime writer. Beneath the headline about federal overreach, there is a deeper taxonomy at work—one that separates law enforcement into two archetypes: the showboater and the real cop. It’s a distinction with profound implications for anyone attempting to tell stories about crime, justice, and the fragile thread of order in American life.
Leovy’s terms are simple, even blunt. The showboaters are what television procedurals and action thrillers have conditioned us to admire: loud, aggressive, full of swagger and soundbites. They talk tough and play to the crowd, painting the world in the black-and-white of good guys and villains. They favor tactics with maximum visibility—sweeps, raids, publicized arrests—at the expense of nuance and precision.
Then there are the real cops, those whose work unfolds in shadow rather than spotlight. They are quieter, more deliberate. They understand that true policing is not an act of domination but of navigation—through the murk of flawed systems, traumatized communities, and ambiguous morality. These officers are legal craftsmen who understand that the measure of success is not how many doors you kick down, but how many cases you can bring to trial and win, cleanly, in the name of due process.
For the writer of crime fiction, the dichotomy is a revelation and a rebuke. Too often, crime novels chase spectacle instead of substance, speed instead of scrutiny. Mea culpa. In this space, my own thrillers are guilty as charged.
Leovy’s essay insists on a different kind of narrative power—one rooted in the laborious, often tedious details of real investigations. It is not the brutality of the act that fascinates her, but the methodical way real detectives carve justice from chaos. In this view, a crime story does not climax with an arrest, but with the moment a reluctant witness agrees to testify. Not the flash of a gun, but the whisper of a name.
Leovy’s central contention—that the current administration favors showboating over substance in its immigration and gang enforcement—is more than political critique. It is a cautionary tale about what happens when institutions prioritize optics over outcomes. And our world of fiction, being its own kind of institution, is vulnerable to the same drift. Writers, especially those who traffic in the grim poetry of urban crime, face a choice: to mirror the mythology of the tough-guy cop, or to pursue something subtler, slower, and—ironically—far more gripping.
Ghettoside
The “real cops” in Leovy’s world are not superheroes. They don’t barrel through bureaucracy; they operate within it. They understand that the courtroom is not a burden but a battleground. These are not vigilantes, but tacticians who use the rule of law as both shield and scalpel. And if this sounds like the stuff of dull procedural slog, it shouldn’t. Leovy’s own work, particularly Ghettoside, is a masterclass in making real-life detective work utterly magnetic, precisely because she refuses to mythologize it.
For those of us who write in this space, this is not a call to abandon drama, but to reframe it. Real stakes arise from the pressure of time, the erosion of trust, the ethical weight of making a deal with a suspect’s terrified cousin. Tension is richer—and more honest—when it grows not from imminent violence but from the possibility of justice slipping away for lack of witness protection, or because a detective misses one small, telling detail. Crime, in Leovy’s telling, is not a puzzle to be solved but a wound to be stitched, one stitch at a time.
Perhaps most usefully for writers, Leovy punctures the seductive idea that “criminal” and “victim” are easily distinguishable roles. In communities torn apart by gang violence, the two often coexist in the same person. The dead boy with a rap sheet. The shooter who once begged his way out of the life. The teenager who joins a gang not to menace others, but to survive. These are the contradictions that real cops must navigate—and that fiction, if it’s honest, must honor.
Writers who ignore this complexity risk falling into ideological traps from both left and right. Leovy is unsparing in her critique of both camps. Conservatives, she argues, are too quick to celebrate brute force, mistaking repression for resolution. But progressives, in their suspicion of law enforcement, often abandon the field entirely, unwilling to engage with the fact that real people—especially Black and Latino victims—desperately need effective policing. Fiction that glosses over either reality is not just less accurate; it’s less compelling.
Leovy’s essay is not merely an argument for better policing. It is, in its way, a call for better storytelling. For crime writers, the challenge she presents is this: to stop fetishizing the badge and start inhabiting it. To write characters who think like real detectives, not vigilantes in uniform. To explore the slow burn of investigation rather than the quick fix of confrontation. To treat the courtroom as drama, not denouement. And to remember that the central figure in a crime story doesn’t always have to be the loudest one in the room.
The result may not be a bestseller in the Lee Child mold. But it may just be something rarer: a crime novel that resonates like truth. Leovy’s vision of real cops—patient, skeptical, quietly determined—isn’t flashy. But it’s exactly the kind of character today’s fiction needs. Tough, not in posture, but in purpose. And worth writing about.
Seven authors who do it well:
Several crime fiction authors stand out for crafting nuanced, realistic portrayals of law enforcement and the investigative process—stories that echo the ethos Jill Leovy advocates: complexity over caricature, diligence over drama, and a moral universe that resists easy binaries. Here are a few who consistently “get it right”:
George Pelecanos
Pelecanos, a novelist and screenwriter for The Wire, writes gritty, character-driven stories set in Washington, D.C., where police, criminals, and communities exist in close, complicated orbit. His cops aren’t saints or monsters—they’re weary, principled, and flawed. He understands how institutions grind people down, and how systemic rot and personal decency can coexist in the same precinct.
Recommended Title: The Night Gardener – A meditation on three detectives and one haunting cold case, blending procedural precision with deep psychological insight.
Tana French
French’s Dublin Murder Squad series combines literary prose with authentic procedural detail. Her detectives are emotionally scarred and ethically ambivalent, but never reduced to stereotypes. She’s particularly skilled at portraying how investigative work warps identity and relationships—not unlike Leovy’s “real cops” who must move delicately within fractured communities.
Recommended Title: The Trespasser – A standout for its portrayal of a young, ambitious female detective confronting both an elusive suspect and internal misogyny within her squad.
Michael Connelly
A former crime reporter like Leovy, Connelly brings journalistic accuracy to his Harry Bosch series. Bosch, an LAPD detective, is the closest thing to Leovy’s “real cop”: dogged, legally literate, and deeply committed to justice, even when it costs him politically or personally. Connelly excels at showing the procedural drudgery that leads to breakthroughs—and doesn’t glamorize shortcuts.
Recommended Title: The Black Echo – The first Bosch novel, but also one of the best in terms of showing the intersection of institutional constraint and detective intuition.
Denise Mina
Mina’s crime fiction, especially her Paddy Meehan and Alex Morrow series, captures the social fabric around violence—poverty, religion, media, and gender. Her detectives are thinkers and listeners, embedded in worlds where every arrest leaves moral residue. Like Leovy, Mina respects the rules and complications of real police work.
Recommended Title: The End of the Wasp Season – A thoughtful, textured procedural about a Glasgow detective who must parse not just a murder, but the economic cruelty behind it.
Attica Locke
Locke’s novels deftly explore the intersections of race, justice, and politics. Her protagonist, Darren Mathews, a Black Texas Ranger in the Highway 59 series, embodies the tension between law enforcement and community loyalty. The stories reflect the systemic ambiguities Leovy writes about—the difficulty of being a “real cop” in a deeply flawed structure.
Recommended Title: Bluebird, Bluebird – A luminous blend of crime, culture, and context, with a protagonist constantly navigating moral gray zones.
James Lee Burke
While occasionally flirting with romanticism, Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novels probe deeply into the psychological and sociopolitical roots of crime. His Louisiana settings are gothic and raw, but his protagonist, an ex-cop and recovering alcoholic, is haunted by the law’s limits and the costs of transgressing it. Burke respects due process even as he questions its failures.
Recommended Title: The Tin Roof Blowdown – A post-Katrina procedural that reveals how real cops operate amid chaos, trauma, and distrust.
Peter Temple
This Australian author’s work offers slow-burn procedurals that put realism and character above theatrics. His detectives, like Leovy’s ideal, value subtlety, lawfulness, and human complexity.
Recommended Title: The Broken Shore – A lyrical, methodical novel that dissects both a murder and the community around it with a real investigator’s eye.
What unites these writers is their refusal to treat policing as a morality play. Their detectives are rarely “white hats,” and their investigations rarely tie up neatly. They reflect Leovy’s truth: that the most heroic police work is often unglamorous, rule-bound, and grounded in patient, persistent empathy.
For those of us who look to move beyond the showboating cop trope, these authors offer a masterclass in how to dramatize procedure without sacrificing emotional or narrative tension. In their pages, justice isn’t a climax—it’s a question. One that’s asked again and again, in every interview room, every affidavit, every weary phone call made long after the cameras are gone.