The People's Police: A Novel

Norman Spinrad, a National Book Award finalist for his short fiction collection The Star-Spangled Future, has now written The People's Police, a sharp commentary on politics with a contemporary, speculative twist. Martin Luther Martin is a hard-working New Orleans cop, who has come up from the gangland of Alligator Swamp through hard work. When he has to serve his own eviction notice, he decides he's had enough and agrees to spearhead a police strike.Brothel owner and entrepreneur J. B. Lafitte also finds himself in a tight spot when his whorehouse in the Garden District goes into foreclosure. Those same Fat Cats responsible for the real estate collapse after Katrina didn't differentiate between social strata or vocation.MaryLou Boudreau, aka Mama Legba, is a television star and voodoo queen―with a difference. The loa really do ride and speak through her.These three, disparate people are pulled together by a single moment in the television studio when Martin, hoping for publicity and support from the people against the banks, corporate fat cats, and corrupt politicians. But no one expects Papa Legba himself to answer, and his question changes everything."What do you offer?"

The Wall Street Journal

Praise for The People's Police"A voice of thunder...No one could ever call Mr. Spinrad moderate, but over the decades he has shown himself a hard guy to argue with. And devastatingly funny as well."

Chicago Tribune

“Spinrad keeps the action swift and raises some provocative issues of police-community relations along the way.”

Amazing Stories

“When it comes to raw, on-the-edge science fiction, Norman Spinrad’s The People’s Police is the real thing!”

Booklist

“An incisive satire that conveys the special circumstances of New Orleans in today’s America, with a clever twist of voodoo magic and humor.”

Locus

"With a sympathetic eye for all human foibles and aspirations, Spinrad, employing the same sharp satiric scalpel used by Tom Wolfe at his best, delivers parables and parodies of our uncivil civic sphere."

Rob Weber, Val's Random Comments

“The People's Police is bound to rub some readers the wrong way as well. Then again, it wouldn't be a good satire if it didn't.”

SF Crowsnest

“Don’t expect conventional Science Fiction but if you want to read a slice of life, this is a good example to try.”

Pick of the Literate

“Spinrad is a philosophic game changer.”

Robert McGrath

“This is vintage Spinrad, wild and wacky.”

Paul Park, author of All Those Vanished Engines

“Two hundred years ago the Marquis de Sade imagined a new kind of utopia, in which liberty, equality, and fraternity had been achieved through sexual and moral mayhem. Norman Spinrad has updated Sade's vision (minus the sadism) . . . The People's Police is a big, Fat-Tuesday carnival of a book.”

Rick Wilber author of Alien MorningPraise for Norman Spinrad

“Norman Spinrad takes on Louisiana politics, bare-knuckle persuasion, and some Big Easy voodoo in The People’s Police. This is a terrific take on a near-future New Orleans where the political climate is as warmed as the weather as the working class takes on the political elite.”

The New York Times Book Review

“Norman Spinrad, like his characters, takes great risks; the rewards for readers willing to meet him halfway are commensurate.”

Jonathan Lethem, New York Times bestselling author

“Norman Spinrad, one of the sacred heroes of my coming-of-age as a writer, has never quit redefining his role as dissident and sage―he’s that most miraculous of creatures, a utopianist’s dystopianist.”

About the Author

Norman Spinrad is the author of over twenty novels, something like 60 short stories collected in half a dozen volumes.   The novels and stories have been published in about 15 languages.     He's written teleplays, including the classic Star Trek, "The Doomsday Machine," and two  produced feature films DRUIDS and LA SIRENE ROUGE. He is a long time literary critic, sometime film critic, perpetual political analyst, and sometime songwriter., and sometime performer.  He's adapted his novel GREENHOUSE SUMMER as a theatrical/screenplay script.   He's been President of the Science Fiction Writers of America and World SF.  He's created something like 30 YouTube videos all by himself.  He's an American who makes his home in Paris by choice and  citizen of the world by inclination, and sees no contradictions.

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