Out of the Muck: A History of the Broward Sheriff's Office.

• Author: Baker, Thomas

Out of the Muck: A History of the Broward Sheriff's Office

By William P. Cahill and Robert M. Jarvis

I won't preach to the already converted who are eager readers of well-researched and well-written books about policing and law enforcement, sheriff's offices, state politics, and South Florida history--you can tell simply from the title that this book is a "must read." It is a masterful work in the growing literary genre of shrieval scholarship.

This is a first-rate work of local history with a solid narrative that relies on a storehouse of newspaper clippings, case files, government reports, correspondence, and court records. While the authors are a pair of university professors, this book does not read like a dry textbook.

Their writing style is a cross between an in-depth newspaper article and a cable TV show hosted by Dominick Dunne. The authors' academic pedigrees are demonstrated, however, in their careful research and equally careful documentation in 37 pages of chapter notes. Other commendable features of the book include more than 200 pictures (many of them never-before-published), a biographical time line, year-by-year elections statistics, an extensive bibliography, and a separate chapter on the Broward County Jail.

The authors' double entendre title "reflects the historical facts that Broward County was partially formed out of the muck of a massive state dredging project and the...