In the 1960's the Andy Griffith Show was a great hit. It followed the lives of a small-town sheriff and his family and friends. The show presented the soft side of a sheriff's life. It was funny, charitable, and gentle. The author of Playing Cops grew up in the same time period and as the member of a rural sheriff's family. His memoir at times is funny, but it is also frightening and heartbreaking. The author and his brothers worked as deputies for their father from their early teens forward and were exposed to all the variants of life and death. They saw the underside of life that most adults go through life without understanding or even acknowledging. Go for the ride with tissues and an open heart.