In 1988, McAlary wrote a non-fiction book, Buddy Boys, about corrupt police in New York's 77th Precinct, in the Brooklyn North patrol borough.
He also had a hand in writing the script for the movie Cop Land, starring Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro.
"[5] For the Daily News McAlary exposed the torture of Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, by New York City Police at a Brooklyn station in August 1997.
[7] McAlary's most controversial story, for the Daily News in 1994, was about a woman who said she had been raped while walking home with groceries through Prospect Park, in Brooklyn.
Unnamed police sources told McAlary that she made up the story, because she wanted to promote a rally about violence against lesbians.
McAlary accepted the original police account of events, and wrote three columns about it, including one headlined, "Rape hoax the real crime."
In 2018, using advanced modern techniques, the New York police matched the DNA to James Edward Webb, who by then had been convicted of serial rape and was serving 75 years to life in prison for those other crimes.