Still on the Beat, A Former South Bronx Detective Pens Crime Novel

For nine years, Edward Conlon worked as a detective in the South Bronx solving homicides. Now, drawing on insights he gained from his nearly decade-long career on the job, he has published his first novel "Red on Red," out this week.

"That's the main split between being a writer and a detective," he said. "Detectives can't turn down boring cases."

The story depicts police life through the partner relationship of two NYPD detectives — Meehan and Esposito — on their beat in Washington Heights.

They untangle cases of apparent suicide in Inwood Hill Park, mistaken identity murder by a rival gang (called "red on red" or criminal-on-criminal killings from which the book title is drawn) and serial rapes.

Conlon, 46, is dedicated and fiercely loyal to "the job," but also an acclaimed author, who has published a memoir, wrote for The New Yorker and graduated from Harvard. Perhaps that unique combination of writing skills and life experience enables him to not only paint a picture of interesting crime cases unraveling in upper Manhattan, but to also deliver a complex psychological profile of Detective Meehan, his lead character.

Meehan goes through a mid-life crisis after a failed marriage and moving back in with his father in Inwood. Conlon juxtaposes his main character's introspection and thoughtfulness to the ebullience and ambition Meehan's partner, Esposito, exudes.

That's how it all began when he started working on the book about five years ago — with the characters — said Conlon, in an interview in Washington Heights near the Hudson River, the same place where he often brings Meehan to reflect on turbulent events. After observing how detectives work in a tandem and develop relationships, Conlon, while being a part of the same process, brick by brick, started twisting his plot.

"It's much less personal than fiction," he said in a thick New York accent while lighting one Camel Lights cigarette after another.  "That's the fun part of fiction. It's not just that you have facts."

Conlon said the authentic and funny dialogue in the book was easy to achieve because he hears "so many voices" on his job. But most of everything else is made up — something in which Conlon seems to have relished.

It gave him freedom to indulge in plotting and solving interesting cases. And that is not what happens all that often in real life, where murders often tend to be senseless and random, Conlon muses.

While this is Conlon's first work of fiction, he is no neophyte writer. In 2004, his memoir "Blue Blood" became a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In it, he wrote of both his and his family's experiences of working on the force. But writing as a preferred career choice nestled in Conlon's mind much earlier, as he graduated from Harvard with a degree in English in 1987.

"I always knew I wanted to write," he said. "I just didn't know how I'd make a living of it."

After graduation, he traipsed around former Yugoslavia for six months, later worked as a court liason for an alternative sentencing organization in Brooklyn and as a freelance writer. His first big break came in 1993, when he penned a story for The New Yorker on the city's potter's field on Hart Island.

As he reported that piece, he also got a tip about Dorian Corey, a well-known drag performer, who died in 1993. According to Conley, Corey allegedly killed a man who tried to rob his West Harlem apartment and after kept his mummified body in the closet for over 10 years.

Conlon excitedly worked on discovering why Corey kept the mummy and wrote the story for The New Yorker, but they sat on it for a while, he said. In the meantime, it appeared on the cover of New York magazine. In combination with the instability and meager freelance pay, the event brought about a desire to change the course of career in Conlon.

"That as much as anything made me realize," he said. "I need a day job."

Two weeks after his 30th birthday, Conlon enrolled into police academy, continuing the family tradition: his great-grandfather and uncle served as cops for 33 years, and his father was briefly a cop before becoming an FBI agent.

Six months later, fresh out of the Academy, Conlon started patrolling the Morrison Housing projects in the South Bronx while working at the 42nd precinct.

His love of writing had not abated though, and soon Conlon started writing about his police work for The New Yorker under a pseudonym. As Marcus Laffey, he authored five pieces between 1997 and 2000: about being a beat policeman; police jargon; late police patrolman shifts; and about working as a detective on a narcotics squad, after he got promoted.

But after a while he felt like even that wasn't enough.

"Police work is a slice of life," Conlon said. "It's not something that's suitable for 3,000 to 4,000-word pieces."

So he came up with a one-page pitch for a book. Soon after, Conlon and his agent interviewed 20 publishers whose offers they received and settled on Riverhead, with a nearly $1 million advance for his memoir, "Blue Blood."

When the news of the deal broke, there were no problems at work or with the NYPD's press office, Conlon said. The only one who did not look upon this favorably was the new captain in the 44th precinct, where Conlon worked, who wondered whether he was up to a Serpico-like feat. Consequently, Conlon said, smiling, he ended up working the night shift for six months, he said.

The memoir received rave reviews, and a year later, in 2005, Conlon, freeing himself of the confines of non-fiction, started working on "Red on Red." In August 2009, he moved to Jordan to work for the NYPD's intelligence unit and completed the book there in 2010. Now back in New York, Conlon said he is taking some time to think about he will do next for the city's Finest.

Excitement surrounding "Red on Red" has not quite settled in yet, and Conlon still doesn't quite know how to talk about it.

"I still don't know how to describe the book," he said, coming up with a simple ad-hoc pitch, as he walked away from the Hudson. "It's about two guys and a bunch of things they do."