I picked up my first novel by Stephen J. Cannell with some misgivings. Cannell is, of course, one of television’s biggest producers and writers, responsible for some great shows (like The Rockford Files and The Commish) and some I consider less noteworthy (like The A Team, which strained credibility farther than I was willing to tolerate).

But being able to put together a successful TV show doesn’t necessarily qualify someone to craft a decent novel. There’s overlap in the two occupations, but big differences as well. And, like any literary snob, I suppose I looked down my nose at the TV connection.

But now I’m convinced. The Tin Collectors was a very good mystery—well written, hard to put down and graced with vivid, sympathetic characters.

Shane Scully is a Los Angeles police detective. As the story opens, he’s awakened from sleep by a call from Barbara Molar, a former girlfriend who is now married to his ex-partner, Ray. Ray has come home mad, she tells him, and he’s trying to kill her.

Shane picks up a gun and rushes over, just in time to find Ray beating Barbara with his police baton. He pulls a gun on Shane, who has no choice but to kill him.

That’s just the beginning of Shane’s trouble. Soon he finds that Ray was the most popular cop in the department, and a lot of members of the force—rookies especially—want a piece of his killer. His routine shooting review, which ought to be no problem under the circumstances, becomes a high-level Internal Affairs investigation, involving accusations of corruption and evidence tampering. He receives a message—a piece of police property went missing from Ray’s house, he’s told, and if he’ll give it back all this will go away.

Shane has no idea what they’re talking about. But if he wants to get out from under, he’ll have to find out. As he investigates, he finds that friends are foes, and foes are friends, and something very rotten has worked its way up to the very highest levels of the department.

On top of everything else, he’s hosting the troubled teenage son of a female friend, and trying to find a way to get through to a boy embittered by repeated personal betrayals.

The Tin Collectors follows the formula for a good TV show—there’s plenty of action precisely on beat, and Shane’s peril (and that of those he cares about) increases at every turn. There are chases and gunfights right out of a script.

But the virtues of a novel are here too—complex characters, good and bad, who act out of believable motives. Meditations on right and wrong, and what it means to be a grownup. A focus on bigger questions than mere survival.

The book isn’t for everyone. There’s rough language, and violence, and a sex scene. One scene that bothered me especially involved Shane sharing marijuana with his teenage charge. He feels bad about it afterward, and explicitly rejects it as a bonding technique, but it’s still presented as a forward step in their relationship.

Still, I think I’ll pick up another Cannell next time I go to the bookstore.