L.A. Cops is primarily a work of fiction; with a few exceptions, the names of my characters as well as most of the cities and counties in the San Joaquin Valley are figments of my imagination. If the reader believes that I have written about actual places, as well as real crimes, that is his right to do so. I can only say in my defense that all writers have stored in their memory-cells recollections of actual events, and frequently borrow from those storage banks ideas that eventually go together to make up a story, or even an entire novel. That’s how writers of fiction make a living; unless the work is pure science-fiction, the more closely it resembles real-life situations, the more likely it will sell, because we all experience something inside when we can relate to the characters, events, or locales in a story. I have used real situations—and in several instances—actual places in the chapters that deal with World War II. Of course, built within that framework, I’ve taken the liberty to make my characters more colorful, gallant, or tyrannical than may have been the actual case. I wasn’t old enough during that period to have had personal experiences of this nature, but some of the military individuals I’ve introduced you to may approximately match some that I ran into during my own years in the Air Force. After all, no one period in time has its own special hold on good, decent people, nor on those who have made life less than great for those they have come in contact with. You will find both types playing important roles in my book.