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Chasing Shadows is mostly a humorous memoir by best-selling author Daryl May, and recounts his years as a Florida deputy sheriff back in the 1960s and his travails as a standup comedian, guitarist, singer and songwriter entertaining on cruise ships, and performing comedy as far away as Australian ski resorts. Yep, Aussies actually understand and enjoyed the Yankee sense of humor. They blame it on all the American TV they get down there.

May also found himself caught in the middle of one of those recurring shootouts at the Port-au-Prince airport in Haiti, and, according newspaper headlines, had a bar hopping, one-nighter with Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the POTUS.

Not long ago, May finished Chasing Shadows, his third book that tells tales of how life and law enforcement have changed in Florida over the years, technically and theoretically. Fifty-plus years ago the Mafia was fiercely entrenched in the Tampa Bay area, the KKK brazenly burned crosses with regularity, court systems were stringently segregated and schools and communities were significantly divided in regards to race.

May’s life has run the gamut with personal tragedy and he writes vividly about that one haunting historical moment that remains forever fresh in his memory. Just four days before his Dallas assassination, the author guarded President John Kennedy in Tampa, smelled the Cuban cigar smoke on his jacket and, along with thousands of others at Al Lopez Field that Monday, sensed his overwhelming aura. On that day, he and other lawmen questioned what they considered unsound security measures for the most powerful man in the world.

But, May sticks mostly with the funny stuff. His first arrest was a good ol’ boy named Charlie May. Knee-walking, ankle-dragging, gutter drunk, and unable to find his backside with both hands, the man found it incomprehensible that he could be jailed by someone that shared his family name. Little Red Riding Hooker amusingly describes a bust made while the author worked in the vice squad, undercover. No pun intended. Along the way, he apprehending a desperado incapacitated by a bottle of apricot brandy broken over his head. While cuffing the lethargic fellow, May said it was all he could do to keep from licking his fingers.

WHO SAYS COPS DON’T HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR?