[2] Conlon's police experience focused on patrolling city-owned public housing developments, as well as arresting street-level drug dealers after observing their sales from surveillance posts.
While he writes some official public releases, Conlon also authors long-form journalism articles for the department, and hosts a true crime podcast interviewing NYPD officers about past cases.
2011 issue of The New Yorker, Conlon wrote a piece in the Talk of the Town section titled "Paying Attention" about 9/11 and his final days with the NYPD detective unit.
Nick Meehan, a New York City detective slipping into mid-career burnout, is assigned a special case for Internal Affairs to investigate a suspected dirty cop.
In between writing about crime, Conlon's book examines the personal lives of his two main characters, the alliances and loyalties, the emotional tolls, the temptations, the shades of gray inherent to police work.