Joseph D. Pistone served in the FBI for 28 years, including six years under cover infiltrating the New York Mafia where he posed as a jewel thief under the name Donnie Brasco. During the 70s, Pistone began collecting evidence against members of the Bonanno crime family that eventually helped convict more than 200 mob associates. After retiring from the Bureau, Pistone co-authored a memoir, Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia. The memoir made the big screen in 1997 as the hit film Donnie Brasco starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino.

The New Yorker published the first "Cop Diary" column in 1997. Written by an active NYPD officer under the pseudonym "Marcus Laffey," the column created an instant stir with its literary style, fascinating insider's view of the city's police force, and the mystery of who this fine writer, walking a beat in the Bronx, really was. That officer was Ed Conlon, a Harvard graduate and current NYPD detective. In his bestseller, the memoir Blue Blood, Conlon relates the daily life of urban cops in a realistic and sharp-witted account of his years as one of New York's Finest.