Joseph Wambaugh – författare

The classic novel of the LA PoliceThey are the Choirboys - the patrol squad of the LA Police attempting to stay sane in an insane world. The Choirboys are five sets of partners on the night-watch, all men of varying temperaments and backgrounds, but they are joined together by the job, and they have elected to spend their pre-dawn hours in MacArthur Park in relaxing drink and sex sessions they call "choir practice". This is the story of men endangered ultimately not by the violence of their jobs but by their choice of off-duty entertainment. Simultaneously darkly funny and terrifying, this is as chillingly authentic as only a veteran police officer could make it.

The cops of Hollywood Station are still over-worked, under-staffed, bound by red tape, hobbled by political correctness, and constantly amazed by what the boulevards can throw at them. Scratch the surface of the 'reel' Hollywood and you'll discover the 'real' Hollywood. Here, Mickey Mouse is a crack addict, Marilyn Monroe is a man and when the moon is full, the neighbourhood gets even weirder. When the legendary Oracle is replaced by Sgt. Jason 'Chickenlips' Treakle - a politically correct, paper shuffling putz with a shiny shoe fetish - Nate 'Hollywood' Weiss leaves the mid-watch to become a Crow, or Community Relations Officer (C.R.O.). These are the guys dealing with domestic disputes, busting stalkers, bouncing paparazzi and calming chronic complainers, wannabe cops and loons of all varieties. It should be easy duty - to the other cops it's 'the sissie beat' - but being Hollywood, the loons are not in short supply and not everything is at is seems. So when Hollywood Nate and fellow crow Bix Rumstead find themselves caught up with bombshell Margot Aziz, they think they're just having some fun.To them, Margot is a harmless hill bunny, stuck in the middle of an ugly divorce from a nefarious strip-club-owner. But Margot's no helpless victim: the femme fatale is setting them up so she can pull off the perfect murder and walk away with her ex-husband's ill-won fortune. But Margot isn't the only one with a deadly plan.

Partners in the Los Angeles Police Department, they’re haunted by terrifying dark secrets of the nightwatch–shared predawn drink and sex sessions they call choir practice. Each wears his cynicism like a bulletproof jockstrap–each has his horror story, his bad dream, his night shriek. He is afraid of his friends–he is afraid of himself.From the Trade Paperback edition.

This is the frighteningly true story of two young cops and two young robbers whose separate destinies fatally cross one march night in a bizarre execution in a deserted Los Angeles field.From the Paperback edition.

The legendary Hollywood Hills are home to wealth, fame, and power -- passing through the neighborhood, it's hard not to get a little greedy. LAPD veteran "Hollywood Nate" Weiss could take or leave the opulence, but he wouldn't say no to onscreen fame. He may get his shot when he catches the appreciative eye of B-list director Rudy Ressler, and his troublemaking fiancée, Leona Brueger, the older-but-still-foxy widow of a processed-meat tycoon. Nate tries to elude her crafty seductions, but consents to keep an eye on their estate in the Hollywood Hills while they're away. Also minding the mansion is Raleigh Dibble, a hapless ex-con trying to put the past behind him. Raleigh is all too happy to be set up for the job -- as butler-cum-watchdog -- by Nigel Wickland, Leona's impeccably dressed art dealer. What Raleigh doesn't realize is that under the natty clothes and posh accent, Nigel has a nefarious plan: two paintings hanging on the mansion's walls will guarantee them more money than they've ever seen. Everyone's dreams are just within reach -- the only problem is, this is Hollywood. A circle of teenage burglars that the media has dubbed The Bling Ring has taken to pillaging the homes of Hollywood celebutants like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, and when a pair of drug-addled young copycats stumbles upon Nigel's heist, that's just the beginning of the disaster to come. Soon Hollywood Nate, surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam, and the rest of the team at Hollywood Station have a deadly situation on their hands.Hollywood Hills is a raucous and dangerous roller coaster ride that showcases Joseph Wambaugh in vintage form.

A prostitute, Missy Moonbeam, falls from the roof of the Wonderland Hotel, and in her diary is the phone number of Caltech, one of America''s finest scientific institutions. Cops from the Ramparts Division of Los Angeles Police Department have to investigate.

Private investigator Breda Burrows, a sultry, tough-as-nails lady, convinces ex-cop Lynn Cutter to guide her through the netherworld of Palm Springs, the pleasure--and, it seems, murder--capital of the world.

Who else but Joseph Wambaugh could write "a joy, a hoot, a riot of a book" that is also acclaimed as "one of this season''s best crime novels"? That''s howThe New York Times Book Review and Time, respectively, described his last novel, Finnegan''s Week. Nobody writes a faster, funnier, more satisfying tale of cops and criminals, the high life and lowlifes that Wambaugh--and Floaters is his sharpest yet.Mick Fortney and his partner Leeds manage to cruise above the standard police stress-pools of coffee and Pepto-Bismol--they''re water cops in the "Club Harbor Unit," manning a patrol boat on San Diego''s Mission Bay. A typically rough day''s detail consists of scoping out body-sculpted beauties on pleasure craft, rescuing boating bozos who''ve run aground, jeering at lifeguards, and hauling in the occasional floater who comes to the surface.But now their days are anything but typical, because the America''s Cup international sailing regattas have come to town and suddenly San Diego is swarming with yacht crazies of every nationality, the cuppies who want to love them, and the looky-look tourists, racing spies, scam artists, and hookers who all want their piece of the action. It''s the outstanding body and jaunty smile--full of mischief, full of hell--of one cuppie, a particularly fiery redhead named Blaze, that gets Leeds and Fortney''s attention. First Leeds drowns in frustratingly unrequited boozy love from afar. Then, with her increasingly odd behavior, Blaze tweaks every one of their cop instincts, alerting them that something''s not quite right on the waterfront.Indeed, Blaze will soon lead Detective Anne Zorn and Mick Fortney along a bizarre criminal trail that would be hilarious if it didn''t wind up just as nasty as it gets, with a pair of murders right on the eve of the biggest sailing race of all.Filled with all of Joseph Wambaugh''s trademark skills--laugh-out-loud writing, crackling dialogue, outrageous excitement, and, of course, plenty of raunchyveteran cops who leap off the page--Floaters is Wambaugh at the very to of his form.

On June 25, 1989, the naked corpse of schoolteacher Susan Reinert was found wedged into her hatchback car in a hotel parking lot near Philadelphia''s "Main Line."  Her two children had vanished.  The Main Line Murder Case burst upon the headlines--and wasn''t resolved for seven years.  Now, master crime writer Joseph Wambaugh reconstructs the case from its roots, recounting the details, drama, players and pawns in this bizarre crime that shocked the nation and tore apart a respectable suburban town.  The massive FBI and state police investigation ultimately centered on two men.  Dr. Jay C. Smith--By day he was principal of Upper Merion High School where Susan Reinert taught.  At night he was a sadist who indulged in porno, drugs, and weapons.  William Bradfield--He was a bearded and charismatic English teacher and classics scholar, but his real genius was for juggling women--three at a time.  One of those women was Susan Reinert.  How these two men are connected, how the brilliant murder was carried off, and how the investigators closed this astounding case makes for Wambaugh''s most compelling book yet.

Seventeen months ago the California desert revealed the remains of Jack Watson. The rich man''s son was found incinerated in a Rolls-Royce, a bullet in his head. Now, a year and a half later, Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective Sidney Blackpool is called into the desert to take on the case. But what begins for Blackpool is an investigation sandwiched between golf games in nearby Palm Springs quickly becomes an obsession. For the savage beauty of the wastelands holds man secrets. Secrets that stir up Blackpool''s long suppressed nightmares of his own son''s death. Secrets that threaten to destroy an entire police department. Secrets that, by rights, should remain forever buried by the wind in the ageless desert sands.

Each night, thousands of immigrants stream north across the Mexican border towards San Diego, hoping to make a new life in the United States. Along the way, many find death instead. Bandit gangs roam the moonlit desert, robbing, raping, and killing these desperate, impoverished migrants. For decades Dick Snider has watched this happen. Now, in 1976, he’s decided to end the bloodshed. A San Diego cop with an intimate awareness of the trials of border crossing, Snider has uncommon sympathy for the illegal immigrants who risk their lives to enter his country. Along with nine other policemen, he forms the Border Crime Task Force, a crack squad of heavily armed foot soldiers dedicated to wiping out the bandit thugs. With each midnight raid, the police raiders step closer to the border between sanity and madness.

Fifteen-year-old Lynda Mann''s savagely raped and strangled body is found along a shady footpath near the English village of Narborough.  Though a massive 150-man dragnet is launched, the case remains unsolved.  Three years later the killer strikes again, raping and strangling teenager Dawn Ashforth only a stone''s throw from where Lynda was so brutally murdered.  But it will take four years, a scientific breakthrough, the largest manhunt in British crime annals, and the blooding of more than four thousand men before the real killer is found.

Los Angeles Harbour is one of the world''s busiest ports. It''s also where the ocean, in the words of Dinko Babich, meets the ghetto and a locus for theft, extortion, drug smuggling and human trafficking. Dinko is a third generation longshoreman, and while no stranger to a little extra-legal activity himself, he''s simply got used to looking the other way.Until he''s paid to transport Lita – a beautiful and surprisingly sweet Mexican dancer – from the harbour front to a Hollywood club. Lita''s seen something she shouldn''t have, something that links her to a shipping container filled with 13 corpses. Can Dinko keep Lita safe while the LAPD catch up? Or will the lethal predators who stalk the docks prove too powerful to escape?Inventive, razor-sharp, and with an unflinching eye for detail, Joseph Wambaugh intertwines suspense, tragedy and humour into the everyday life of the cops and residents of Los Angeles Harbour and Hollywood. Starring a host of colourful characters from the Hollywood Station series – the surfer cops known as ''Flotsam and Jetsam'', aspiring actor ''Hollywood Nate'' Weiss, young Britney Small – Harbour Nocturne is the brilliant new novel from the grandmaster of crime.

Hollywood certainly isn't your typical police precinct, but in Hollywood Moon, follow-up to Hollywood Station and Hollywood Crows, the cops of that surreal place seem called upon to deal with an even greater share of weirdness than normal. Drag queens in delicto flagrante behind dumpsters, dead hobos pushed around in wheelchairs, men in massage parlours receiving unspeakable injuries from Barbie dolls. That's not to say that the cops themselves don't have their own peculiarities: Hollywood Nate still dreams of movie stardom, but worries as he gets older that he's too good-looking to be a character actor. Then there's Aaron Sloane, forever lusting after his beautiful partner Sheila Montez, and Dana Vaughn, a tough no-nonsense cop who can't stand the fact that former chauvinist pig turned 'guardian angel' Lee Murillo won't stop following her around after she saved his life.But there's a darker side to all that weirdness - and when the enigmatic crook Dewey Gleason, known variously to his associates as 'Jacob Kessler' and 'Bernie Graham', hatches an audacious kidnap plan, without knowing that one of the hired help lives a double life as a serial sex attacker, things start to get very dangerous indeed.