Lines and Shadows

I'm a former police officer, author of police books and avid reader. Lines & Shadows is the best non-fiction police book I've ever read. [...]

This book was well researched, written and expressive. Having had worked that area many years ago as a US Border Patrolman myself, the story presented was true to life and fact written and rang true with me. The actuality of what goes on at and between the US borders and Mexico would be really unbelievable to many people who have never been there. It's a whole other world. Mr. Wambaugh has written this story beautifully from all aspects. This story is well worth the reading time spent, which goes by pretty fast once you get started!

I have read this book over and over again. It combines drama, humor, and enough social commentary that you won't feel it is frivolous. Based on fact, it is a great read. Presently, I am trying to follow up on what happened to the "characters" after the book ended. Can't go wrong with this book. Sabes que, Wambaugh at his best!

The philosophical setting of this book is littered with "ifs." If the United States government would protect the US from invaders, as it is charged to do, this book never would have been written. If other nations were governed by constitutions conceptually similar to that of the United States, establishing freedom and individual rights everywhere -- such that people would not feel it necessary to flee their home governments, and seek freedom in the United States -- this book never would have come into being. If, if, if. This excellent book is a well-written tragedy about good law enforcement people who took the initiative to overlook one crime (illegal immigration) and proactively fight other crimes -- robbery, assault, battery etc. The story is compelling and riveting. It is good guys versus bad guys.Unfortunately, both sides lost.

Mr. Wambaugh as always, is able to catch the true flavor of what it was really like to be a cop and be a man. How hard is/was to "keep" a marriage, capture the essence of another culture and still tell a story as if we were all sitting in a bar listening to the ones who saw it all. The Seventies were ripe with blurried lines of two countries, two cultures forever linked in land of sometimes chaos. Those guys were the cowboys of the Seventies. It wasn't just a "Mexican" thing,... it was a Cop thing.