400 Things Cops Know shows police work on the inside, from the viewpoint of the regular cop on the beat - a profession that can range from rewarding to bizarre to terrifying, all within the course of a single eight-hour shift. Written by veteran police sergeant Adam Plantinga, 400 Things Cops Know brings the reader into life the way cops experience it - a life of danger, frustration, occasional triumph and plenty of grindingly hard routine work. In a laconic, no-nonsense, dryly humorous style, Plantinga tells what he’s learned from 13 years as a patrolman, from the everyday to the exotic - how to know at a glance when a suspect is carrying a weapon or is going to attack, how to kick a door down, how to drive in a car chase without recklessly endangering the public, why you should always carry cigarettes, even if you don’t smoke (offering a smoke is the best way to lure a suicide to safety) and what to do if you find a severed limb (don’t put it on ice - you need to keep it dry). 400 Things Cops Know deglamorises police work, showing the physical, psychological and emotional toll of the job. AUTHOR: Adam Plantinga holds a B.A. in English with a second major in Criminology/Law Studies from Marquette University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude in 1995. Plantinga’s short story Untitled was included in the anthology 25 and Under/Fiction and Washington Post book critic George Garrett called it his candidate for the best story in the book. He has written thirteen nonfiction articles on various aspects of police work for the literary magazine The Cresset, published by the Valparaiso University Press. Plantinga was a City of Milwaukee Police Officer from 2001 to 2008, including time spent as a Field Training Officer. He is currently a sergeant with the San Francisco Police Department.
