IDAHO FALLS — A police chief with a penchant for mystery writing is bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Book 'em."

Idaho Falls Police Chief Steve Roos, named to the job in November after former Chief J. Kent Livsey was forced out, has written two books, "Deep Cover," published in 1995, and sequel "Double Jeopardy," published in 1997, both by the Mormon-owned imprint Bookcraft Inc.

According to the Web site www.adherents.com, Roos is among a number of active members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who have written detective or mystery novels featuring Mormon characters. In an interview with KPVI Television, Roos said he based his books on experiences during his 25 years on the force.

"Well, it is based on an undercover officer in Idaho Falls and how he grows beyond himself and gets in over his head and ends up in some interesting situations," said Roos, adding that like him, his main character advanced through the police ranks from the first book to the second.

"He's no longer a new rookie undercover officer and he's working a financial crime that turns into something," he said. "I just had some interesting things and I thought, 'You know, this might make a good story."'

As police chief for just a month, Roos has gotten more of a reputation for erasing than writing.

He cut $50,000 in costs by shifting a captain and two lieutenants from administrative duties to patrol.

He's also hoping to put laptop computers into all the patrol cars to improve efficiency when processing cases.

Roos says he wasn't exactly a natural when it came to writing.

"Years ago, when I was going to college, I dropped out for a time because I wanted to duck a writing class," he said.

One person who reviewed "Deep Cover," in which Officer Jeff Foster is plagued by moral issues in a drug investigation, wrote on the Amazon.com Web site, "I've read it at least three or four times over. It's really exciting, it has a lot of subplots that all tie in with the plot and I love the ending. Keep writing Roos!"

Whether he does is uncertain, he said, because the hours between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m., when he once filled notebooks with fiction, are now taken over by administrative work.

Still, putting his thoughts down on paper in the form of fiction has, on occasion, helped him work through animosities he developed in catching lawbreakers, he said.

"When I went back to patrol at one point, I had a one-line journal entry that said, 'People are scum,"' Roos recalled, "so sometimes, to put pen to paper is therapeutic and kind of (helps me) work through some things."