{"id":2761,"date":"2014-06-14T12:59:54","date_gmt":"2014-06-14T16:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=2761"},"modified":"2014-06-14T12:59:54","modified_gmt":"2014-06-14T16:59:54","slug":"a-great-novel-about-a-great-cop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/a-great-novel-about-a-great-cop\/","title":{"rendered":"A GREAT NOVEL ABOUT A GREAT COP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every now and then, I read a historical novel in which the writer diligently researched the times and career of their protagonist, but didn\u2019t really understand him or what he did, and let that slip out. They transfer their own values to someone in a world and a job where things had to be done differently, and it shows, and spoils the whole effort. People who\u2019ve never ridden a horse or fired a Colt Single Action probably shouldn\u2019t try to create words or thoughts for real cowboys, and maybe it takes a real physician to write a historical novel about a great doctor.
\nI offer you a real cop who has brilliantly executed a first novel about a real \u2013 and great \u2013 Twentieth Century lawman. I know Mike Conti, who retired a while back after a distinguished career with the Massachusetts State Police. He\u2019s still a master firearms instructor, and if the name seems familiar, you may have read his well-written training manual or met him at a conference of IALEFI, the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors.\"Jelly<\/a>
\nOne of Conti\u2019s passions is studying the great police gunfighters, which leads us to his new historical novel, \u201cJelly Bryce: the Legend Begins.\u201d Delf Bryce began as an Oklahoma country boy with a phenomenal talent for shooting, a talent which got him recruited onto the Oklahoma City Police Department\u2019s pistol team. Once he was patrolling that city\u2019s mean streets, he had to use his gun more than once \u201con the two-way range.\u201d Promoted to detective more for his skill in relating to people than for his wizardry with his favorite Smith & Wesson revolver, he found himself in still more shootouts. A natty dresser, he got his nickname from a would-be cop-killer whom Bryce trumped at his own game. As the downed gunman lay dying from the wounds Bryce had inflicted on him with his trademark S&W .44 Special, he gurgled to the stylishly-attired detective, \u201cI can\u2019t believe I was killed by a jellybean like you!\u201d Those famous last words became a nickname, and he would ever after be known as \u201cJelly\u201d Bryce.
\nConti\u2019s book mixes meticulous research into Bryce\u2019s life with the insight of a real policeman. At one point, Bryce sadly tells an older and wiser cop that he considers himself a monster, because he feels good after gun battles in which he has killed his opponents. The old head explains to him, without using the modern term, that what he\u2019s feeling is survival euphoria: the exhilaration comes, not from having caused death, but from having escaped it. Your ordinary wordsmith would have missed that, but Conti absolutely nails it \u2013 and that kind of insight, again and again, brings the book to life.
\nBeginning at Bryce\u2019s birth and going up to the turbulent \u201cDillinger Days\u201d when J. Edgar Hoover decided to reinforce the ranks of the fledgling FBI with street-proven police gunfighters, \u201cJelly Bryce: the Legend Begins\u201d is a riveting read. Mike tells me it\u2019s the first of a trilogy, and I for one am eager to read the next volume. I found \u201cJelly Bryce: the Legend Begins\u201d a wonderful read. You can order the book from www.sabergroup.com<\/a>, which also offers Mike\u2019s work on police pistolcraft for modern times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every now and then, I read a historical novel in which the writer diligently researched the times and career of their protagonist, but didn\u2019t really understand him or what he did, and let that slip out. They transfer their own values to someone in a world and a job where things had to be done […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reviews"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}