So when I catch Dennis Farina ankling awkwardly down a Crime Story hallway, I think hey, he's flatfooted. Twenty years on the force what do you expect? Riff on that voice, that face, that attitude. And when I catch Charles Shafer underlining the humour in his book On Cabrini Green by having his characters fall down laughing at his punch-lines, I think hey, 28 years on the force, he's still as much cop as writer. Isn't that what they do, cops, laugh openly at their own jokes?

There's plenty of opportunity to laugh in Shafer's book. Sitting down to a hot pastrami sandwich, Sergeant Paul Kostovic happens to witness a pair of street thieves as they pull a jewel heist at the intersection outside Millie's Deli. His attention is drawn as much by the fact that their actions seem uncharacteristically purposeful, as the fact that he recognizes the pair from the neighbourhood around Cabrini Green, a housing project that Chicago cops are more inclined to enter as an invading force than as a community patrol. For Dittybop Caldwell and Shoestring Tolliver, planning a trip to a haberdashery is a logistical challenge. Kostovic suspects there's a more capable mind behind the street thieves' actions. His intuition is confirmed as the booty gets bigger and bodies of diamond merchants are found.

The perps and victims receive comic representations, but Shafer aims his most searing satirical humour at the cops in the story. There's the incompetent Detective Kyle Debolt, who manages to show up late for most investigations but catches up by jumping to the wrong conclusions. And there's Volly and Joe, who drive the meat wagon, recovering bodies from crime scenes:
"Volly kicked the floater in the knee. 'You dog, you,' he told its unseeing eyes. 'I hope you know you've ruined the shit outta my day.' "

It's dark humour, intended to relieve the tension of working under frustrating conditions. Sergeant Kostovic gets almost as much heart-burn from his colleagues on the force as he does from the criminals he pursues, but he's the sort of dedicated worker who doesn't seem to recognize the line between on and off duty. He's far more effective on the street than he is dealing with family or romantic interests. When it comes to women, he's as clueless as Dittybop and Shoelace. He's also a bit heavy on the Marine warrior mythology, but maybe that's a cop thing too.

On Cabrini Green is not just yuks. Shafer fashions a solid plot that depicts victims drawn to their fates through their own rapacious greed. Narration shifts points of view to keep the story moving briskly. Readers get a broad-shouldered tour that reveals even tourist-familiar sections of the Windy City from sharply different angles.

Shafer writes a column for the on-line mystery magazine Blue Murder. Writers can contact him through the publication if they've questions about procedures literary and investigative. They'll find him as open and affable as the characters he creates.