Waffle House Diaries

This memoir depicts the Waffle House as a microcosm of humanity where Gandhi would not be out of place meeting the twelve disciples and hookers and addicts sit in booths next to agents of the Department of Justice. It shows a world where coffee is the beverage of communion, good and evil become blurred, and real life never mirrors exploits in the movies. Looking back on his journey for justice in an unjust world, Smith recalls various events in his career not as heroic adventures but as daily procedures where he does what he can with his limited resources and intelligences. Ultimately he finds storytelling, not a gun, to be the most effective weapon to confront the dark.

Review: "Waffle House Diaries" . . . recalls a 30-year career in enforcing federal drug laws--the good, the bad and the ugly as he calls it--of working for the Department of Justice. In the book, Smith recounts one occasion while on surveillance to arrest a group of smugglers offloading marijuana in the middle of a river and finds himself instead helping to rescue two men from a helicopter which had crashed into the river in the midst of heavy fog. When he is injured in a car crash, he soon finds that doctors in Berkeley refused to treat "pigs." And on three different occasions he was forced to draw his gun to protect himself and those around him. --Severo Avila, "The Rome News Tribune"