What makes a fifty-year-old man quit a highly successful career in
charity work to take on the low-paid, dangerous job of being a police
officer? When Mark Johnson left the United Way to become the oldest
rookie in the Mobile, Alabama, police department, he didn't just have to
adjust to a new career--he had to adjust to an entirely new life of
danger, violence, and stark moral choices. Apprehensions and
Convictions is Johnson's explosive memoir of his second career as a
cop. Going from fund-raising with socialites to confronting armed
suspects in the streets, Johnson found that poverty and crime were no
longer social issues but matters of life and death. A civilized man
whose first instinct is to help people in trouble, Johnson learned that
some men can only be subdued with brute force and some chronic criminals
refuse to be redeemed. Defying the skepticism of his wife, the derision
of the younger cops who called him "Pawpaw," and his own self-doubts,
Johnson rose to become a detective and a highly decorated officer.
Apprehensions and Convictions also tells a personal story of how
Johnson overcame his own demons to find a new sense of purpose and
identity in midlife. From a troubled drink- and drug-fueled youth, to
dealing with both his birth and adoptive parents, to struggling to find
a steady career path, Johnson's story is of a man who found his courage
and changed himself. An intense, sweeping narrative that explores the
frustrations of an overprivileged youth, delves deeply into the
dysfunction of the Mobile ghetto, and ends with an armed standoff
between Johnson and an escaped cop-killer, Apprehensions and
Convictions is a compelling new memoir of a remarkable life.
