Hell’s Kitchen, Submarines and Stolen Dope

Police-Writers.com, a website dedicated to police officers turned authors, added five NYPD authors Peter Keenan, William Jacobsen, Gerald Kelly, Adolph Hart and Donald Herlihy

Peter Keenan was born in Hell’s Kitchen during the Roaring Twenties. Shortly after his 20th birthday in 1942, he enlisted in the United States Navy. During World War II he served as a radio operator on a submarine in the South Pacific and South China seas. In 1946, following his discharge from the Navy, he joined the New York Police Department. He spent twenty years as a uniformed police officer in the patrol branch.

In 1967, after retiring from the police department he became a Revenue Officer and later a Special Agent, Criminal Investigator with the United States Treasury Department. From 1981 until his retirement from Federal civil service in 1989 he was assigned as the Internal Revenue Service’s Intelligence Representative to the United States National Central Bureau of INTERPOL located in Washington, D.C. Over 135 countries were affiliated with this famous criminal investigative agency during that period. His assignment entailed occasional foreign travel to the international headquarters of INTERPOL at St. Cloud, located outside of Paris, France, and various countries in South America and the Caribbean. Constables on Patrol is Peter Keenan’s first book.

William Jacobsen, the author of “Viper,” “Business as Usual” and “For Hire,” was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. When he joined the New York Police Department he was first assigned to the 25th Precinct in upper Manhattan. Later, he was transferred to the Tactical Patrol Force and then the Brooklyn North Youth Squad. He also worked the 67th Detective Squad in Flatbush, Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Burglary-Larceny Squad, and the Brooklyn Burglary Squad. William Jacobsen retired out of the Brooklyn Burglary Squad and now lives in Florida.

Gerald Kelly is a retired NYPD detective. During his career he worked both narcotics and the Special Investigating Unit. Gerald Kelly's “Honor for Sale,” is a somewhat fictionalized account of the theft of 500 pounds of narcotics from the New York Police Department’s seized evidence. The theft included 112 pounds of heroin that had been seized in conjunction with the French Connection case.

In “Memoirs of a Spy,” Adolph Hart tells the story of how he was recruited by NYPD to infiltrate early Civil Rights movement and Communist party provocateurs during the troublesome years of the 1960s.

From escaping death during the Korean War, to the practical jokes played by the “Brothers in Blue,” Donald Herlihy’s autobiography is a true testament to how the brothers of the NYPD lived their lives day by day while on the police department and how they became lifelong friends on and off the job.

Police-Writers.com hosts 182 police officers and their 486 books in six categories.