Green Sun
Kent Anderson
Mulholland Books 2018
336 pages

Green Sun by former police officer Kent Anderson is a very original police procedural combined with some magic realism. This book is part of a triptych that includes Sympathy for the Devil Night Dogs. You do not have to be familiar with the first two mysteries to enjoy Green Sun but the latter will certainly tempt you into reading the first two. Kindle version at Amazon

Officer Hanson is a rookie with the Oakland PD and just hoping to get through the compulsory number of weeks on the job to get his ticket to apply to any other PD in the country and get out of Oakland. What is unusual about Hanson is he just quit his job as an English professor in Boise after serving time as a cop in Portland and time as a member of Special Forces in Vietnam.

Nobody much likes Hanson, especially his sergeant so Hanson is pretty much on his own. This suits him fine as he can apply the law as it suits him which means a preference for short situation resolved cards than getting things riled up so he will have to file paperwork. The price to pay for that independence is he is often set up to go alone to dangerous parts of Oakland, including some that are on no official map of the city.

Hanson soon becomes appreciated by most as an easy to get along and fair cop. He befriends Weege, a pre-teen on a bike with a talent to be everywhere, Felix Maxwell, the local crime lord, and a beautiful woman named Libya.

A rather mystical black rabbit with a white stripe over its left eye and Death sometimes make an appearance at crucial moment.

The tension in Green Sun is tied to if Hanson will survive his probation or not. The interest in what becomes much more than a police procedural is in how strong a main character Hanson is and how well Anderson writes.

Comparisons have been made to early Joseph Wambaugh and they are valid but Kent Anderson is also a very original writer well worth a read or two.