One Shade of Blue

THE COMMISSIONER (368 pp.)--Richard Dougherty--Doubleday ($4.95).

Grown men of solid accomplishment have been known to quiver with boyish delight over toy electric trains, newly netted butterflies, or the music of Wagner. But if their secret passions have left them with the remains of reason, they keep their infatuation from public eyes; the world never understands. The dark secret of Richard Dougherty is that he likes cops. A stretch as pressagent for the New York City police department did nothing, oddly enough, to tarnish his fondness.

This may account for the spongy patches that appear much too frequently in a novel that is otherwise exciting and knowledgeable. Writing of reform politicians in his last book, Author Dougherty gave his narrative that leaven of malice which is the salt of a certain kind of novel writing. In The Commissioner, the reader may feel malice--especially if he is a frequent traffic-ticketee--but the author clearly does not. Anthony Russell, the dour Irish moralist who is the police commissioner of the title, has Dougherty's worshipful approval. Russell's problems are believable--what to do about his oldest friend, the chief, who has been caught doing a favor for a racketeer; how to deal with a powerful Negro leader who thinks mistakenly that detectives have roughed up his son. But the problems lead to little character revelation; Dougherty, loving his character too well, invariably appears to cut a Path when it seems that Russell will lose his way in the high grass of his own conflicting loyalties.

The best of Dougherty's novel is his portrayal of two detectives who carry the action while Russell broods. Their workmanlike search for a killer is written with toughness and honesty, as if no one had ever before told a detective story. And perhaps, if it is honesty that is to be considered, no one has. The detectives are good cops, and convincingly so. But the author can see no other kind; even his bribe takers are merely roguish leftovers from an era when gaslight softened the ugly look of graft. An artist as skilled as Dougherty should know that the boys in blue come in other shades.

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