Farewell to Peter Falk, An Analysis of Columbo-style Questioning, and My Weird Experience on Roxbury Drive…
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
Good TV should never be confused with reality.
But we confuse the two all the time.
Cops may be the worst on this one.
Believe it or not, when I was ”on the job” I personally saw other detectives do TV-style interrogations on actual suspects.
They yelled. They intimidated. On more than one occasion I heard a fellow officer say, ”Do you know what they do to punks like you in the joint?” And they expected a guy to confess after hearing this?
The last homicide case I worked as a detective was the double murder of an elderly couple. They’d been together constantly for 55 years—and were still together in death on side-by-side tables for their Saturday afternoon autopsies. While we waited (more…)








So I heard James Arness died today.
Lesson No. 1: Imagination is ALWAYS grander than reality.
So a few weeks ago I happened to be in Memphis taking care of some minor business matters, and finding myself with a little spare time decided to take in a bit of the International Blues Challenge that just happened to be in full swing on Beale Street.
It’s always been strange to me that Christmas and movies seem to go hand-in-hand. But a lot of others things that have nothing to do with Christmas have been paired up with it too, right?
Last month I gave you a