My Review of “Uncuffed” Anthology

Doing something good while being entertained — it’s a tried and true formula as any fundraising organizer will tell you.

Readers will certainly check both boxes with Uncuffed, a new anthology featuring established and new police writers from the United States and United Kingdom. The thirty-four entries include essays, poems, short stories, and book excerpts covering an eclectic variety of subjects. This review is based on a copy of the anthology provided to me for that purpose.

As for the “doing good” part of the equation: proceeds from Uncuffed will be donated to Care of Police Survivors (COPS), a charity dedicated to supporting the families of UK police officers killed in the line of duty. A truly worthy cause.

I was familiar with a few of writers featured in Uncuffed — Paul Anthony is a personal favorite, and I was pleased to see an excerpt from The Fragile Peace (my review) included — but discovering new voices is one of the best parts of reading an anthology, isn’t it? I found the short stories “Dying for a Chat” by Dave Miller, “Risk—90s Style” by Ray Gregory and “Paper Trail” by Wayne Zurl to be particular enjoyable.

My laughter was somewhat bittersweet reading the essay “Writing the Wrongs” by The Station Sergeant. I can’t say what exactly, but something happened to the world as a whole in the 1990s as The Sergeant’s description of changes to the police services in the UK mirrored my perception of how the U.S. Navy I enlisted into in the early 1980s began to morph at that time into the one I retired from in 2003.

Full disclosure, I was asked to contribute to this anthology and within readers will indeed find a couple chapters from my first novel, Carpathia. Honored to be asked, my bonafides for inclusion are certainly the weakest of the lot: after 9/11, I served for six months in the newly created position of Force Protection Officer for the naval station where I was assigned.

Be entertained and do some good. Pick up Uncuffed.