“Joseph Wambaugh took crime fiction to a whole new level, to something beyond classification. These are stories with depth of character and humor and a cold, hard honesty that rings true with every read. I’m one of the few lucky enough to have already read a copy of Harbor Nocturne. It’s Wambaugh at his best!” —Michael Connelly
Joseph Wambaugh, former LAPD detective, multiple New York Times best seller, and Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, is known as “the father of the modern police novel.” With Harbor Nocturne, he has produced a Dickensian tale of crime and corruption sure to be one of the outstanding books of the year.
Set in the southernmost Los Angeles district of San Pedro, one of the world’s busiest harbors, an unlikely pair of lovers are unwittingly caught between the two warring sides of the law. When Dinko Babich, a young longshoreman, delivers Lita Medina, a young Mexican dancer, from the harbor to a Hollywood nightclub, their lives are forever changed. Their paths cross with many colorful characters introduced in Wambaugh’s acclaimed best-selling Hollywood Station series—the surfer cops known as Flotsam and Jetsam, aspiring actor “Hollywood Nate” Weiss, young Britney Small—along with new members of the midwatch. These lives with seemingly nothing in common will all collide as they gamely cope with the weirdness and wackiness of Hollywood.
Suspense and tragedy are intertwined in the everyday life of the cops and residents of San Pedro Harbor, with the unflinching eye for detail and dark humor that only Joseph Wambaugh can provide.
“Joseph Wambaugh took crime fiction to a whole new level, to something beyond classification. These are stories with depth of character and humor and a cold, hard honesty that rings true with every read. I’m one of the few lucky enough to have already read a copy of Harbor Nocturne. It’s Wambaugh at his best!” —Michael Connelly
“The legendary Wambaugh’s newest is chock-full of his trademark cop talk and offbeat side vignettes. His ability to weave a complex story together out of seemingly disparate elements lightens up some of the grittiness of big city police work.” —Library Journal
“[H]ighly entertaining . . . Razor-edged dialogue punctuates the vignette-filled plot. Realistic criminals are well matched by Wambaugh’s equally authentic police . . . in this darkly comic, gritty look at life on the streets.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Wambaugh embeds the stories he hears from cops within fiercely and ingeniously plotted mysteries’A very fast ride-along, enlivened by cop gallows humor, snarky street altercations, and an insistent pull to the dark side. . . . it’s hard to tell until the very end who’ll come out on top.” —Kirkus Reviews
Praise for Joseph Wambaugh:
“Joseph Wambaugh has been one of those necessary voices through the years—sometimes angry, sometimes illuminating, often wise, always funny and fascinating—and without him, the lives of many readers would be smaller. Including mine.” —Stephen King
“It’s Joseph Wambaugh’s world. Other crime writers just live in it.” —Jonathan Shapiro, Los Angeles Times
“An absurdist take on crime, as well as plotlines and sentences that perform buoyant loop-de-loops all over the page before making flawless landings . . . What fun it is to read Joseph Wambaugh!” —The Washington Post
“A cop’s-eye view of police brutality . . . courage and compassion.” —The New York Times
“Captures the excitement, terror, pity, and occasional tedium of police work in a bang-up job of writing.” —The Boston Globe
“If Los Angeles police detective-sergeant-turned-author Joseph Wambaugh didn’t invent the modern cop novel, he’s been one of its most prolifi c and successful practitioners.” —The Wall Street Journal
“No writer describes the cop world’s twin masks of comedy and tragedy as well as Joseph Wambaugh.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Strand Best Books of 2012
Sergeant Hawthorne said, “Maybe a good cover story would be that you’re a seller of illegal video poker machines, the kind that’s springing up in residential casinos all over L.A. They’re brought from Arizona and can rake in between one and two thousand per machine per week, no problem. With your highlighted blond hair and permanent suntans, you resemble each other enough for you to claim you’re brothers, and I think Hector Cozzo would buy that. If he accepts the amputee, he’ll accept the brother with no worries that this might be a police sting.”
“First of all, we don’t use tanning parlors,” Flotsam said, his eyes narrowing.
“And we don’t highlight neither,” Jetsam said, equally resentful. He touched his lightly gelled hair and said,
“These streaks’re what the sun does to hard-core kahunas that surf year-round.”
“I didn’t mean to suggest anything untoward,” the sergeant apologized.
Flotsam grunted and turned to Jetsam, saying, “Untoward?” Then, to their host: “If we work for you, Sarge, we might need a translator.”
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