Night Dogs (1996) Signed First Edition Reference

Night Dogs follows Hanson from Vietnam to the streets of Portland, Oregon, where he works as a police officer in the North Precinct during the 1970s. Published in 1996, nine years after Sympathy for the Devil, the novel applies the same unflinching honesty to police work that Anderson brought to combat. Hanson patrols a beat of poverty, addiction, and violence, struggling to maintain his humanity while doing a job that relentlessly tests it.

The Book

Night Dogs is arguably the finest police novel written in America. Anderson’s years as a Portland cop give every scene the texture of lived experience — the dispatch codes, the smell of a crime scene, the politics of the precinct, the moral compromises that accumulate over a career. The novel avoids both the hero-cop and the corrupt-cop clichés, presenting police work as it actually is: boring, terrifying, heartbreaking, and occasionally beautiful.

First Edition Identification

Publisher: Bantam Books, New York (some sources list Dennis McMillan as limited edition publisher) Publication date: 1996 Format: Hardcover in dust jacket

The Dennis McMillan limited edition, if it exists, would command a significant premium.

Signed Copy Market Values

• Signed first edition, fine/fine: $150–$400
• Unsigned first edition: $20–$60

The nine-year gap between Anderson’s first two novels contributed to his obscurity, but those who have read Night Dogs tend to become evangelical about it. James Crumley, himself a master of literary crime fiction, praised it as the best cop novel he had ever read.