It's the wildest bar in Chinatown, run by a proprietor named Wing who will steal your bar change every chance he gets. On payday the groupies mingle there with off-duty LAPD cops, including homicide detectives Martin Welborn and Al Mackey, who get assigned the case of a murdered Hollywood studio boss who may have been involved in some very strange and dangerous filmmaking.
Review Quote.
"Let us dispel forever the notion that Mr. Wambaugh is only a former cop who happens to write books ... This would be tantamount to saying that Jack London was first and foremost a sailor. Mr. Wambaugh is, in fact, a writer of genuine power, style, wit and originality." - The New York Times Book Review
"Wambaugh's cops, like the soldiers in Catch-22, are men and women in a frenzy, zany grotesques made that way by the outrageous nature of the things they deal with." - Los Angeles Times Book Review
"[Wambaugh is] a good writer who becomes better with each successive book." - The Detroit News
"Wambaugh sidesteps all the clichés." - The Baltimore Sun
Biographical Note.
The son of a policeman, Joseph Wambaugh (b. 1937) began his writing career while a member of the Los Angeles Police Department. He joined the LAPD in 1960 after three years in the Marine Corps, and rose to the rank of detective sergeant before retiring in 1974. His first novel, The New Centurions (1971), was a quick success, drawing praise for its realistic action and intelligent characterization, and was adapted into a feature film starring George C. Scott. He followed it up with The Blue Knight (1972), which was adapted into a mini-series starring William Holden and Lee Remick.
Since then Wambaugh has continued writing about the LAPD. He has been credited with a realistic portrayal of police officers, showing them not as superheroes but as men struggling with a difficult job, a depiction taken mainstream by television's Police Story, which Wambaugh helped create in the mid-1970s. In addition to novels, Wambaugh has written nonfiction, winning a special Edgar Award for 1974's The Onion Field, an account of the longest criminal trial in California history. His most recent work is the novel Hollywood Moon (2010).
