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My Old Man's Badge
MY OLD MAN’S BADGE Somewhere along the Bowery prowled a fanatical killer who had vowed to kill one more New York cop to even up his ancient grudge. For years the New York police had been after this murderer… Patrolman Johnny Malone goes undercover to trap him, down into the haunts of the hunted, in the shadows beneath the El, along the waterfront, on the dimly lit Harlem streets, and under the bridges on the lower East Side. For Malone it’s more than a job. The cop-killer was responsible for the death of his father… and now’s he’s returned, determined to kill the son!
202 pages, Paperback
Published December 3, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 9, 2025
My Old Man’s Badge (1950) was Frey’s first novel and it almost functions as a dress rehearsal for “Waterfront,” released the following year and made into a well known movie.
Both novels are set in New York City and feature Johnny Malone as a young NY cop, although in My Old Man’s Badge, Malone is so green that he hasn’t even been issued a uniform yet. Though he carries his fAther’s badge and is quickly promoted to detective and sent undercover to capture the guy who killed his father – certainly there is no conflict of interest there. So in both novels, Malone goes undercover to ferret out a bad guy that no one knows what he looks like. And in both novels his girl, Mary Kieran, is in danger and used against him. Although Waterfront is the slicker and more finished of the two novels. This one has its points too.
In My Old Man’s Badge, the opening has Malone, without thinking, wading into a jewelry store robbery, blasting two hoodlums and becoming the town hero (except to the jewelry store owner whose place is now full of bullet holes and broken glass). Malone is quickly promoted to detective. The police commissioner tells him “Do you know how he was killed?” “Someone walked up behind him on the street, pulled a gun, and shot him that his father’s killer “was a man by the name of Hoffmann. Rudolph Hoffmann. . . . He’s somewhere in New York now, Malone. He’s going to kill you, too.” Although the idea that Hoffman wants to take out kid Malone years later seems a bit of a reach, it provides a plot line.
Malone goes undercover to find Hoffman with the only bare clue being a cheap paper used to write a threatening letter. And so on that thin reed Malone becomes a Bowery bum, hoping to get in with the drug-peddling crowd and with his way up to Hoffman who surely runs it all – similar to Malone’s modus operandi in Waterfront chasing after the head mobster running the docks.
The novel is dirty in its focus among the backstabbing (literally) drug dealing scum of the Bowery and quite explosive in its violence.
Both novels are set in New York City and feature Johnny Malone as a young NY cop, although in My Old Man’s Badge, Malone is so green that he hasn’t even been issued a uniform yet. Though he carries his fAther’s badge and is quickly promoted to detective and sent undercover to capture the guy who killed his father – certainly there is no conflict of interest there. So in both novels, Malone goes undercover to ferret out a bad guy that no one knows what he looks like. And in both novels his girl, Mary Kieran, is in danger and used against him. Although Waterfront is the slicker and more finished of the two novels. This one has its points too.
In My Old Man’s Badge, the opening has Malone, without thinking, wading into a jewelry store robbery, blasting two hoodlums and becoming the town hero (except to the jewelry store owner whose place is now full of bullet holes and broken glass). Malone is quickly promoted to detective. The police commissioner tells him “Do you know how he was killed?” “Someone walked up behind him on the street, pulled a gun, and shot him that his father’s killer “was a man by the name of Hoffmann. Rudolph Hoffmann. . . . He’s somewhere in New York now, Malone. He’s going to kill you, too.” Although the idea that Hoffman wants to take out kid Malone years later seems a bit of a reach, it provides a plot line.
Malone goes undercover to find Hoffman with the only bare clue being a cheap paper used to write a threatening letter. And so on that thin reed Malone becomes a Bowery bum, hoping to get in with the drug-peddling crowd and with his way up to Hoffman who surely runs it all – similar to Malone’s modus operandi in Waterfront chasing after the head mobster running the docks.
The novel is dirty in its focus among the backstabbing (literally) drug dealing scum of the Bowery and quite explosive in its violence.
July 25, 2021
Johnny Malone—a police detective in New York in the 50’s, receives an anonymous letter warning him that the man who killed his father is about to kill him. Thus, Malone goes under cover to find this killer and administer him his due justice. This novel reads like a Raymond Chandler novel, in first person from the perspective of the detective himself. This was the author’s first book, and for the first, it’s not bad. The story was interesting and kept me engaged. Unlike some police novels, the characters here aren’t stupid, particularly the detective himself. He isn’t perfect, but he doesn’t make any blatantly stupid decisions that leave the reader wondering if he has any brains. The events play out rather predictably, and of course the good guy always wins. I would give this four stars were it not for the ending. In a novel where a son is seeking revenge for his father’s death, the least the author can provide us is a satisfying, explicitly brutal description of the murderer’s death, and when I turned the page and read THE END before I got that satisfaction, I was more than let down. Better novels exist like this, and I’ll move on to them, hoping for a completely satisfying conclusion.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews