Patrick Solar

Educational Background

• Doctorate in Philosophy, Northern Illinois University

• Master of Public Administration, Northern Illinois University

• Bachelor of Science, Northern Illinois Unviersity

• FBI National Academy, Quantico Virginia

• Certified Police Chief, State of Illinois

Professional Experience
Patrick Solar is a policing scholar who develops courses and teaches Police Administration, Police Community Relations, Criminal Investigations, and the capstone class in the on ground and online Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice program at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. He also coordinates, develops courses, and teaches in the masters in criminal justice online program.

Solar is a life-time member of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police and the FBI National Academy Associates.  He is also a member of the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police, and a member of the Illinois Law Enforcement Accreditation Council. He served as a Police officer beginning in 1981 and served as a police officer, detective, sergeant, lieutenant and chief.  He retired from policing after 29 years of service in 2010. He has been teaching since 1992 and in addition to his full-time commitment at UW-Platteville, he has hosted training seminars for in-service officers and has taught for Northwestern’s Center for Public Safety, police staff & command course.

He is the author of "Police Community Relations: A conflict management approach" now in it's second edition available from West Academic Publishing.  His current research is focused on a new title, "Police Accountability: A Leadership Development and Risk Management Approach" coming soon from Kendall-Hunt Publishing.

Personal Information
Favorite quote: “Life is a gift from God. What you do with yours is your gift to God.”

Dr. Solar has also authored additional non-fiction titles including the "American Street Law Series." This is a 4 volume set of books written in a non-academic style for those who would like a better understanding of how our constitutional protections as Americans actually come to life out on the street.

Rights, Authority, and the Law — From Both Sides of the Badge

Most books about policing and the law pick a side. This series doesn't have to — because its author has stood on every side there is. Patrick Solar spent nearly three decades in law enforcement, from patrol to command, and just as long in the classroom training the officers who came after him. American Street Law is the constitutional law, the interview room, and the chief's office, explained by someone who has actually stood in all three.

Across four volumes, the series follows one question — what is the law actually for, and how does it work in practice? — from the sidewalk, to the interview room, to the command staff meeting. Each volume stands completely on its own. Read together, they form the most complete, practitioner-built account of American policing and the law available in one series.

Volume 1: The Constitution on the Street

The entry point. Written like the smart friend who happens to be a retired chief, explaining your rights across the fence — what police can and can't do, in plain English, with real cases and no lecturing. For citizens, students, and new officers who want to understand a police encounter before, during, and after it happens.

Volume 2: The Legal Ecosystem

The professional bridge. The same constitutional framework from Volume 1, taken to full working depth — the authority continuum, search and seizure, Miranda, and the adversarial system, explained the way a working officer actually needs it: not simplified, not academic, built to hold up in a report and on the stand.

Volume 3: Human Relations and Advanced Investigative Techniques

The professional core, and the most distinctive book in the series. Humanistic policing, economic culture, emotional intelligence, and the science of interview and interrogation — the psychology of getting the truth out of people who don't want to give it up, grounded entirely in real cases from a real career.

Volume 4: Risk Management & The Art of Command Authority

The capstone. For the chiefs, commanders, and sergeants who have to build and run an organization, not just work inside one — the leadership, liability, and risk-management discipline that separates a department that survives scrutiny from one that doesn't.

Four books. One badge, one bar, one bench — and the officer, citizen, and executive who all have to understand how they fit together.

Authentic Crime Fiction

The Guardians of Justice Series, Book 1

The Guardians of Justice is a gripping, authentic portrait of American law enforcement during one of its most turbulent decades. Set against the explosive backdrop of the 1980s War on Drugs, the novel follows a cast of officers, some principled, some deeply flawed, as they patrol a city under siege from gangs, addiction, and escalating street violence.

Drawing on his real-world experience as both a criminal justice professor and a retired police officer, Patrick J. Solar delivers a story that crackles with insider credibility. The novel captures the brotherhood, the moral compromises, and the seductive pull of power that define life on the force, without flinching from the cost of misconduct or the line between justice and corruption.

Structured in three acts, A Bygone Era, Prelude to War, and Measured Responses; the story moves from the street-level rhythms of daily policing through gang warfare and institutional betrayal to a reckoning with the consequences of unchecked authority. Solar's dialogue is sharp, his characters are fully realized, and his insider knowledge of police culture lends every scene an authenticity that is rare in the genre.

Fans of Joseph Wambaugh, Ed McBain, and The Wire will find much to admire here.

"The Master of the Game," book 2

A retired detective. A body by the water. A cold case twenty-five years in the making.

Joe McCann was one of the best detectives the Justice, Illinois P.D. ever had — until he wasn’t. Now he runs a lakeside resort bar in the north woods, pouring drafts for the local mayor and trying to stay out of trouble.

When the body of a teenage girl is discovered at a lovers’ lane on Prescott Lake, the small-town chief of police asks McCann to take a look. He takes more than a look. Because the crime scene reminds him of something — a very old case, an eight-year-old girl, 1959 — and once McCann sees a thread, he can’t stop pulling it.

What unravels will lead him from the north Wisconsin woods to the suburbs of Chicago, through a web of corruption, buried evidence, and a predator who has been playing his game for decades — patient, invisible, and entirely certain he cannot be caught.

The Master of the Game is a richly atmospheric procedural thriller from a criminal justice professor and retired police officer who knows exactly how these cases break — and break the people working them.

Perfect for fans of Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly, and classic small-town crime fiction.

 — Includes mature themes of violence and sexual assault. Intended for adult readers. —

"Murphy's Law", book 3 (Coming soon)

Murphy’s Law is the story of a brilliant detective who wins every tactical battle and loses something essential in the process. Its engine is dramatic irony: by the midpoint of the book the reader knows that the organized crime family Murphy is hunting has already stood down. The war is over. Murphy doesn’t know that. His rage, his love for Melissa, and his absolute certainty drive him toward a confrontation nobody on the other side even wants anymore.

That certainty is the book’s true antagonist. Murphy becomes the aggressor in a battle that has ended. The novel asks, unflinchingly, what that costs a man who has built his entire identity around being right and being just.