Character Monday: No Human's Involved...or NHI

On any given night a full 35-45% of the shows watched on American TV are cop or law enforcement related. To this end, welcome Detective Nate Richards.

I am a 22 year veteran of law enforcement and Nate Richards is my newest character. Perhaps, in some ways Nate is my alter ego. In my two decades of service I have discovered that we as police officers have developed our own language with its many nuances of meaning.  NHI: No Humans Involved is one of these terms.

 NHI is one of the many prejudices that have been adopted into the language of modern police work. It is the idea that there are some people or people groups that are in some way less than human, or more literally, less than the ideal human. This is the question that drives Nate. How does he deal with these people, the druggies and child molesters of the city while at the same time holding fast to his faith?

This is only one of the many concepts that Nate deals with in the course of this series while I explore the cop’s world from an insider’s view. So many of the books, and even the TV shows deal with the stuff of the cop’s world. They deal with the how’s and the when’s of his world, but through Nate we explore the why’s and the how comes of the police detective’s existence. Nate allows us to see how he feels as he’s processing a crime scene and then as he deals with the after images and the conflicts this sometimes causes within him, his personal relationships, and his life as a Christian.

Through the Nate Richards series, I deal with the values of NHI, and in the second book, due out this fall, DRT: Dead Right There, and next year’s release IAI: Internal Affairs Investigation. There are a total of six books planned in the series with each one of them exploring a different concept of the cop psyche. 

Urban fiction as a genre has been tagged as being guttural, street level, and for most, profane.   In the Nate Richards series, we get the chance to follow Nate as he investigates some of the more cruel crimes one man can commit against another, but at the same time telling the real human story and exploring the true human drama, while not sinking to the level of the profane or pornographic.

Ray Ellis is the author of the new Nate Richards series, N.H.I.: No Humans Involved, and D.R.T. : Dead Right There, as well as a Digital Short: “I”.  He served as a U.S. Marine and was ordain as a pastor in the spring of 1989. He is in his 22 year of law enforcement serving as a sex crimes investigator until June and is now working patrol. Ray is an avid reader and loves to paint and draw. Ray’s first book, Cave of the Kracken is a science fiction/fantasy and he swore he would never write police related stories until his critique partner talked him into writing N.H.I. in the fall of 2007. Ray lives in the Treasure Valley in Idaho with his wife and children.

Ray Ellis

Blog: www.authorray.blogspot.com

Twitter: @RayEllisNHI

Facebook: Ray Ellis(Author), and NHI

Website: www.rayellis-author.com

Books:

N.H.I.: No Humans Involved

D.R.T.: Dead Right There

“I” (Digital Short)

Fear and violence threatens to destroy the city

Half of Treasure City is controlled by a violent street gang. The other half is controlled by fear. A rookie detective, Nate Richards, is thrust between the two.
Abyss, a mysterious street gang moves into the valley and people have started dying. Nate’s girlfriend suddenly disappears and the gang is being targeted as the cause.
With his partner fighting for her life—the result of a vigilante’s bullet, political pressure from above, and time running out to find his missing girlfriend, Nate has to overcome the darkness that has taken over the city and threatening to consume his soul? Forced to fight to stay on the case, he has to work against his command and the elements of the streets while trying to hold on to his faith that seems to make less and less sense as details unfold.
With darkness growing and evil seeming to swell, will Nate have enough time to solve the murder and discover the identity of the new gang leader before his girlfriend becomes the latest victim in the growing violent total. Will he succumb to the pressure to get the job done by any means necessary, or will he become part of the problem and prove that there are No Humans Involved.