The author joins LAPD in the fading "Noir" era and is assigned to Hollywood. Ride with him as he encounters thugs, colorful pimps, and other characters in patrol & vice. MAX is "The crow collecting shiny things---the bits and pieces that color life." He writes with wit and humor of incidents and characters. MAX heads north to Alaska to police the Aleutian Chain, the Pribilofs, and Kodiak Island. He gives a "Sourdough's" insight into some peculiar happenings in the "Land of the Midnight Sun" as he patrols in kayak & snowshoes. He is called out of retirement to become City Marshal of Tombstone, Arizona, to find corruption and a department run amok. Two of his four deputies are shot to death. MAX travels the world as an Army Advisor. He tests experimental parachutes, is arrested in Egypt, pursued in The Sudan, hunts in the Congo, and sees action on the Thai/Cambodian border. He meets kings & presidents, generals & cannibals---and marries the Colonel's daughter in the Republic of China.