"'Tough, straight-talking' Timoney," reads the headline in today's Philadelphia Daily News. Frankly, it's not often that the local "people paper" shows interest in a Penn Press book, but when one of our authors is a former Philadelphia police commissioner and a great storyteller, people from across the community take notice.
Daily News reporter David Gambacorta writes:
John Timoney's law-enforcement career stretched across four decades
and three major cities.You'd think, with all that experience, that the famous
straight-talker would have a whole bunch of stories to tell about cops,
politicians and the press – some funny, some sad, some just plain old
interesting.You'd be right.
"The Irish are great bulls— artists," Timoney said yesterday,
hitting a 10 on an imaginary self-deprecation meter."My mother was a great storyteller. From the time I was a kid, I used
to sit in the kitchen and listen to her tell stories about the olden
days."Maybe I picked it up from her. Otherwise, I'm not quite sure."
Timoney's storytelling skills are front and center in his
soon-to-published book, "Beat Cop to Top Cop: A Tale of Three Cities."The former Philadelphia police commissioner – who came here from New
York, then went to Miami – will visit Philly on May 11 to the launch the
book, which is more an account of lessons learned in law enforcement
than it is an autobiography."I didn't want to do a memoir," he said, "because all you do is brag
without addressing your screw-ups. I tried to write a halfway fair
book."
You can get a taste of some Timoney stories and his thoughts on regional politicians like Ed Rendell in the Daily News article on www.philly.com. Timoney's new book Beat Cop to Top Cop: A Tale of Three Cities will be available in May.
