McLean\u2019s book isn\u2019t exhaustive but it\u2019s a good primer and often eye-opening. \u201cThere are no secrets given away, and I\u2019m deliberate about that. There\u2019s a chapter about covert squads and the undercover programme, and I\u2019m very circumspect about it \u2013 I would never compromise anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Angus McLean as a 20-year-old newly graduated police officer in 1998 and (right) the book he’s now written to make crime novelist more accurate writers. Photos \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
McLean is a fluid and engaging writer and the book, like his fiction, does a good line in enjoyable snark. Evidence: detectives \u201cdon\u2019t interfere with the body, check the pockets, pick up a fallen pistol with a pen through the trigger guard or any of that sort of bollocks\u201d. New detectives in too much of a hurry to climb the promotion ladder are \u201cblue-flamers\u201d; the bulletproof vests currently in use cause \u201chip, back, neck and shoulder problems, because NZ Police bought the Morris Minor version, not the Porsche\u201d.<\/p>\n
McLean, married with a teenage son, also shares case studies from his police career and current work. In the chapter about postmortems, he recalls attending an autopsy on a child; the body had to be flayed to access bruising under the skin. \u201cOur son was the same age as the victim,\u201d writes McLean, \u201cand he got extra cuddles that night.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the other end of the scale, he accompanied a female detective to interview a jailed rapist and wondered why, during the interview, the inmate was slumping further and further down his chair. A glance under the table showed that he had flopped his jandal off and was stroking his foot up the detective\u2019s calf. She didn\u2019t remark or flinch \u2013 just moved her leg away and carried on.<\/p>\n
Ask McLean how much licence he thinks a writer can take with a procedural and he talks about reader expectations of the genre: the flawed protagonist, the tropes, the detail of the investigation, the good guys winning. \u201cThere\u2019s always licence for writers to stretch the truth or stretch believability or whatever you want to call it,\u201d he says. \u201cBut by its nature, you can\u2019t push a procedural very far.\u201d Overdo it, he adds, and readers switch off.<\/p>\n
That said, McLean says no one would mistake a Lee Child thriller about soldier-turned-drifter Jack Reacher for a procedural. \u201cNo one walks into a bar and beats up 20 guys,\u201d he says. \u201cReacher can, because that\u2019s what he does. But you know that\u2019s what you\u2019re getting when you read a Reacher book.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who has done procedurals well? Remember the locally made 1989-91 TV series Shark in the Park? McLean says it remains the \u201cbest NZ cop show of all time\u201d. It helped that former officer Duncan Holland was an adviser and scriptwriter on the programme (early episodes are on nzonscreen.com<\/a>). The recent Irish-New Zealand co-pro The Gone, still available on demand, did a good job too, he says. It had two ex-policemen as advisers.<\/p>\n Growing up, McLean was a voracious reader \u2012 Enid Blyton\u2019s The Famous Five and Willard Price\u2019s Adventure series among them. He\u2019d rewrite TV thrillers and make his mates the heroes. Even then, McLean knew he\u2019d join the police. His late dad served 30 years, retiring as an inspector, and his late mum spent 18 years in police records. McLean\u2019s elder brother spent 23 years in the service and now works in cyber security; McLean was on the beat by 20.<\/p>\n Throughout his life, writing has been \u201cmy entertainment really. You could watch TV, go for a run, read a book, garden \u2013 and you could write.\u201d McLean is working on book 33. This time, he says, it\u2019s a pure police procedural.<\/p>\n