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Joseph Wambaugh

Bestselling crime writer whose work drew on his own experience as an LAPD detective

Joseph Wambaugh, who has died of cancer aged 88, was one of the most important US crime writers of his generation. Beginning with his novels The New Centurions (1971) and The Blue Knight (1972), and the nonfiction The Onion Field (1973), Wambaugh’s books and their screen adaptations were built around the inner tensions of police work.

Wambaugh, himself a Los Angeles cop for 14 years, knew well the challenges officers faced in maintaining some sort of normality while trapped in the messy realities of their brutal and often irrational jobs. He revealed the strains this put on their lives, and the sometimes extreme means they took to relieve that pressure. He also dealt unflinchingly with corruption, both personal, among cops, and structurally, within the politics of the police department and the city the officers were sworn to protect and serve.

“If he didn’t invent the police novel, he certainly reinvented it,” said the writerMichael Connelly, whose cop Harry Bosch confronted many of the same issues. Certainly, Wambaugh’s world was a far cry from the squeaky-clean image of the LAPD detective Joe Friday in the TV show Dragnet.

Wambaugh was born in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his father, Joseph, a steelworker and cop, was a small-town police chief and his mother, Anne (nee Malloy), was a housewife. They joined the postwar exodus to California when Joe was 14; he graduated from high school in Ontario, California at 17, in 1954, and joined the Marines. The following year, he married his high-school sweetheart, Dee Allsop.

Discharged in 1957, he worked in a steel mill while taking night classes in English at Los Angeles State College (now California State University Los Angeles). He received his BA in 1960 and joined the LAPD. He continued studying at night while walking a beat, and in 1968 received his master’s degree and was promoted to detective.

His early short stories were all rejected, but one editor advised he try longer form. His first novel, The New Centurions, spent 32 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. It tracks three 1960 graduates of the police academy as they learn their jobs, culminating in the Watts riots of 1965. The 1972 film of the novel gaveGeorge C Scottone of his best roles. By then Wambaugh had retired from the LAPD; he was arresting criminals who asked for his autograph, or for referrals to publishers or movie producers.

The Blue Knight told of a career beat cop, Bumper Morgan, in his last days before retirement. The 1973 TV miniseries based on the book produced an Emmy award for William Holden as Bumper, and a Golden Globe for Lee Remick as his wife, and spun off a TV series starringGeorge Kennedy.

Wambaugh followed with The Onion Field, an account of the kidnapping by petty criminals of two LA cops, one of whom was killed while the other was able to escape. In a work often compared toTruman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Wambaugh contrasted the way one of the two killers learns the veneer of respectability during the course of the trial, while the surviving cop struggles with the trauma of his experience. “I’m most interested in characters who have no conscience,” he explained, referencing his own Catholic upbringing. The book won a special Edgar Allan Poe award from the Mystery Writers of America; Wambaugh wrote the screenplay for Harold Becker’s excellent 1979 film, which starred James Woods and John Savage.

In 1973 he co-created the TV anthology series Police Story, episodes of which won Edgars in 1974 and 1975, and spun off another hit series, Police Woman, starring Angie Dickinson.

Each of Wambaugh’s next three novels quickly transitioned to film. The Choirboys (1975) became a vehicle for one of the director Robert Aldrich’s most anarchic efforts, in 1977, for which Wambaugh wrote the screenplay; he won another Edgar for the script for Becker’s adaptation of The Black Marble (1978).

The Glitter Dome (1980) was set in a Chinatown bar by that name where police officers romanced “chickens and vultures”, drawing a moral parallel with the police investigation into pornography. The 1984 HBO production starredJames GarnerandMargot Kidder.

After ranging into politics and Nobel prizes in Delta Star (1983), Wambaugh returned to true crime in 1984 with two books, Lines and Shadows, and Echoes in the Darkness. The latter became a TV miniseries with Stockard Channing, Peter Coyote andTreat Williams. It dealt with the murder in suburban Philadelphia of a schoolteacher and her two children, for which the school principal was one of two men convicted. When his conviction was later overturned, it emerged Wambaugh had paid the lead investigator $50,000, contingent on the principal’s arrest. Though the payment was not part of the overturning of the verdict, Wambaugh was sued by the principal, but won the case.

By now, his influence on police dramas had been widely absorbed, in everything from Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue to The Shield. But Wambaugh’s own writing switched focus as he moved out of LA to Orange County and to San Diego: five novels between 1985 and 1996 dealt more with the shadow-lives of the rich elites in exclusive communities.

The Blooding (1989) was the true crime story of the Leicester murderer Colin Pitchfork, who was one of the first people convicted via DNA evidence. Wambaugh won his third Edgar for his next true crime story, Fire Lover (2002), about Frank Orr, America’s most prolific serial arsonist, who worked as a fireinvestigator.

Two years after his fourth Edgar, a lifetime achievement award in 2004, he returned to fiction, prompted by the federal government’s oversight of the LAPD followingthe Rampart corruption scandal.Hollywood Station(2006) was the first of five novels in six years, all with Hollywood in the title, starring the detective “Hollywood Nate” West and featuring a pair of detectives called Flotsam and Jetsam, shades of Connelly’s Crate and Barrel. They recalled the stories of his own early days on the force. “Once I create the characters,” he said, “I let [them] take me [where they are going]”.

Wambaugh is survived by his wife, son, David, and daughter, Jeanette. Another son, Mark, died in 1984.

🔔 Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, writer, born 22 January 1937; died 28 February 2025

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos atJust for Books…?

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The New Centurions (1972) on a continuous loop

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George Kennedy in The Blue Knight TV series (1975)

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A great non-fiction read from 1984. Meet the BARFers (Border Area Reconnaissance Force). Our border crisis has been a long time growing.

Lines and Shadows by Joseph Wambaugh | Goodreads

From the review: "sent to patrol the snake-infested no-man's-land south of San Diego. Not to apprehend the thousands of illegal aliens slipping into the U.S., but to stop the ruthless bandits who preyed on them nightly--relentlessly robbing, raping, and murdering defenseless men, women, and children."

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"For several days in 1987 the buildings of the old Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital were turned into nursery schools, police stations, classrooms, and hospital spaces for the filming of the miniseries Echoes in the Darkness. Our copy of the book was signed by the author, Joseph Wambaugh, and given to a Toronto location scout who now works as a counselor at Humber. But before the series, and before the book, there was a story behind the story."

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A recommended reading list of books I own and have read

A Demon in my View by Ruth Rendell

A Judgment in Stone by Ruth Rendell

A Place Called Freedom by Ken Follett

A Season in Purgatory by Dominick Dunne

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins

A Spy in the House of Love by Anais Nin

All Around the Town by Mary Higgins Clark

An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Angels & Demons by Dan Brown

Anthem by Ayn Rand

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Breaking Blue by Timothy Egan

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

Carrie by Stephen King

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson

Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean

Dead Run by Erica Spindler

Dream Girl by Laura Lippman

Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Every Breath You Take by Ann Rule

Every Secret Thing by Laura Lippman

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Fatal Flowers by Rosemary Daniell

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews

Garden of Shadows by V.C. Andrews

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Good Girls Lie by J.T. Ellison

Green River, Running Red by Ann Rule

Help the Poor Struggler by Martha Grimes

High Lonesome by Joyce Carol Oates

I Am the Only Running Footman by Martha Grimes

I Know You Know by Gilly Macmillan

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg

If You Really Loved Me by Ann Rule

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Just Kids by Patti Smith

Lost Souls by Lisa Jackson

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

Menfreya in the Morning by Victoria Holt

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

My Sweet Audrina by by V.C. Andrews

Never Look Back by Alison Gaylin

Night Gaunts by Joyce Carol Oates

Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger

Nowhere Like Home by Sara Shepard

Over Tumbled Graves by Jess Walter

Pearl in the Mist by V.C. Andrews

Petals on the Wind by V.C. Andrews

Pursuit by Joyce Carol Oates

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Ruby by V.C. Andrews

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb

Slenderman by Kathleen Hale

Small Sacrifices by Ann Rule

Southern Cross by Patricia Cornwell

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

Suicide Blonde by Darcey Steinke

Summer by Edith Wharton

Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

The 9th Girl by Tami Hoag

The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates

The Anodyne Necklace by Martha Grimes

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

The Blooding by Joseph Wambaugh

The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins

The Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfeld

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The Cutler series by V.C. Andrews

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware

The Deer Leap by Martha Grimes

The Doll Master by Joyce Carol Oates

The Elizas by Sara Shepard

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

The Female of the Species by Joyce Carol Oates

The Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray

The Girl Before by J.P. Delaney

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

The Hudson series by V.C. Andrews

The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins

The It Girl by Ruth Ware

The Logan series by V.C. Andrews

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

The Lying Game by Sara Shepard

The Old Contemptibles By Martha Grimes

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Prince of Lost Places by Kathy Hepinstall

The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence

The Right Hand of Evil by John Saul

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The Shining by Stephen King

The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls

The Stand by Stephen King

The Strange Beautiful by Carla Crujido

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

The Third Twin by Ken Follett

The Torn Skirt by Rebecca Godfrey

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

The Turn of the Screw & Daisy Miller by Henry James

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Under the Bridge by Rebecca Godfrey

Vanish by Tess Gerritsen

Villette by Charlotte Bronte

Wait for Me by Sara Shepard

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

Watching You by Lisa Jewell

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

White Oleander by Janet Fitch

Wonderland by Joyce Carol Oates

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

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Birthdays 1.22

Beer Birthdays

Pat Hagerman (1964)

James Renfrew (1965)

Motor (1966)

Bud Bundy, character on Married… with Children, named after Al Bundy's favorite beer (1975)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Francis Bacon; writer, philosopher (1561)

Sergei Eisenstein; Russian director & screenwriter (1898)

Robert E. Howard; fantasy writer (1906)

J.J. Johnson; jazz trombonist, bandleader (1924)

Diane Lane; actress (1965)

Famous Birthdays

Andre Marie Ampere; physicist (1775)

George Balanchine; choreographer (1904)

Bill Bixby; actor (1934)

Richard Blackmore; English physician & poet (1654)

Linda Blair; actress (1959)

Ed Bradley; television journalist (1941)

Ernst Busch; German actor and singer (1900)

Lord Byron; poet (1788)

Seymour Cassel; actor (1935)

Caitlin Clark; basketball player (2002)

Sam Cooke; musician (1931)

Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan; pilot (1907)

Olivia d'Abo; actor (1967)

John Donne; English poet & cleric (1573)

Joe Esposito; author (1938)

Guy Fieri; chef, author, and tv host (1968)

Willa Ford; singer-songwriter & actress (1981)

Pierre Gassendi; French mathematician, astronomer & philosopher (1592)

D.W. Griffith; film director (1875)

Martti Haavio; Finnish poet and mythologist (1899)

Alan J. Heeger; physicist and chemist (1936)

Helen Hoyt; poet and author (1887)

John Hurt; actor (1940)

Michael Hutchence; rock singer (1960)

Jim Jarmusch; film director (1953)

DJ Jazzy Jeff; musician (1965)

Graham Kerr; chef, "Galloping Gourmet" (1934)

William Kidd; Scottish sailor and pirate hunter (1645)

Nicolas Lancret; French painter (1690)

Piper Laurie; actor (1932)

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German philosopher & author (1729)

Malcolm McLaren, English singer-songwriter & manager

Charles Morgan; writer (1894)

Steve Perry; rock musician (1949)

Francis Picabia; French painter and poet (1878)

Walter Raleigh; English poet, soldier, & explorer (1552)

Ray Rice; Baltimore Ravens RB (1987)

George "Chuck" Seifert; San Francisco 49ers coach (1940)

John Wesley Shipp; actor (1956)

Ann Sothern; actress (1909)

August Strindberg; Swedish novelist, poet, & playwright (1849)

Hikaru Walter Sulu; Star Trek character (2179)

Conrad Veidt; German-American actor, director (1893)

Frederick Vinson; supreme court chief justice (1890)

Joseph Wambaugh; writer (1937)

John Winthrop; politician (1588)

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TV Guide - July 20 - 26, 1963

William Dennis Weaver (June 4, 1924 – February 24, 2006) Actor best known for his work in television and films from the early 1950s until not long before his death in 2006. Weaver’s two most notable roles were as Marshal Matt Dillon’s trusty partner Chester Goode on the CBS western Gunsmoke and as Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud on the NBC police drama McCloud. He appeared in the 1971 television film Duel, the first film of director Steven Spielberg.

From 1964 to 1965, he portrayed a friendly veterinary physician in NBC’s comedy-drama Kentucky Jones. His next substantial role was as Tom Wedloe on the CBS family series Gentle Ben, with co-star Clint Howard, from 1967 to 1969. In 1970 Weaver landed the title role in the NBC series McCloud, for which he received two Emmy Award nominations. Later series during the 1980s (both of which lasted only one season) were Stone in which Weaver played a Joseph Wambaugh-esque police sergeant turned crime novelist and Buck James in which he played a Texas-based surgeon and rancher. (Buck James was loosely based on real-life Texas doctor James “Red” Duke.) He portrayed a Navy rear admiral for 22 episodes of a 1983–1984 series, Emerald Point N.A.S.. Weaver’s last work was done on an ABC Family cable television show called Wildfire, where he played Henry Ritter, the father of Jean Ritter and the co-owner of Raintree Ranch. His role on the show was cut short due to his death. (Wikipedia)

James Arness (May 26, 1923 – June 3, 2011) Actor best known for portraying Marshal Matt Dillon for 20 years in the television series Gunsmoke. Arness has the distinction of having played the role of Dillon in five separate decades: 1955 to 1975 in the weekly series, then in Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge (1987) and four more made-for-television Gunsmoke films in the 1990s. In Europe, Arness reached cult status for his role as Zeb Macahan in the western series How the West Was Won. He was the older brother of actor Peter Graves.

After Gunsmoke ended, Arness performed in Western-themed movies and television series, including How the West Was Won, and in five made-for-television Gunsmoke movies between 1987 and 1994. An exception was as a big-city police officer in a short-lived 1981-1982 series, McClain’s Law, co-starring with Marshall Colt. His role as mountain man Zeb Macahan in How the West Was Won made him a cult figure in many European countries, where it became even more popular than in the United States, as the series has been rebroadcast many times across Europe. (Wikipedia)

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…

17/3/25 - PATRICIA HIGHSMITH (AND ‘STRANGERS ON A TRAIN’ AND JOSEPH WAMBAUGH)

‘Then daylight made a sudden thrust at the night … a bird … ‘ (Highsmith, 1966, p.143).

…

REFERENCE

Highsmith, P. (1966 [1950] ) ‘Strangers on a train’. London: Vintage.

*****

DAWN BROKE TODAY IN BASINGSTOKE AT 05.15

THE SUN ROSE AT 06.15

…

IT WILL SET AT 18.12

ON THURSDAY’SVERNAL EQUINOX THE SUN WILL RISE AT 06.08 AND WILL SET AT 18.17

OUR DAYS BEGIN TO BE LONGER THAN OUR NIGHTS

*****

MEANWHILE

‘He liked Texas … ‘ (Highsmith, 1966, p.65).

OUR TEXAS CORRESPONDENT

…

HAS BEEN IN SAN ANTONIO

…

WHERE THE SUN ROSE TODAY AT O7.42 (12.42 GMT)

…

TRAVELLIN’ NANCE

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HAS BEEN IN BANGKOK

…

AT THE GOLDEN PALACE

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WHERE THE SUN ROSE TODAY AT 06.25 (23.25 YESTERDAY GMT - I THINK)

…

&

OUR NEW YORK CORRESPONDENT

…

ISN’T UP TO MUCH BECAUSE YESTERDAY SHE RAN THE NEW YORK HALF MARATHON

…

WHERE THE SUN ROSE TODAY AT 07.05 (11.05 GMT)

*****

ALL SEASONS

*****

SEE ALSO

‘I have no great respect for the church … ‘ (Highsmith, 1966, p.163).

ON THE SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT

…

ON ONE OF THE TWO ANNUAL FINANCIAL GIVING SUNDAYS

…

*****

ALL SAINTS

…

BASINGSTOKE CHURCH

*****

LENT

*****

…

CANDLEMAS CANDLE

LIGHTING THE YEAR

*****

CONGRATULATIONS 2025

…

2025 IS THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PUBLICATION OF ‘STRANGERS ON A TRAIN’ - 15/3/1950

WIKIPEDIA

…

CONGRATULATIONS

*****

RIP 2024

…

JOSEPH WAMBAUGH 28/2/25

OBITUARY

…

RIP

*****

…

*****

QUOTE OF THE WEEK 2011 - 2025

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13 EPIC YEARS

*****

FROM THE ARCHIVE

…

18/12/23

*****

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RIP Joseph Wambaugh, 88, ex-cop and writer, who wrote brilliant police procedurals and true crime, including "The Onion Field."

I loved his books. His cops were sometimes heroic, sometimes bad and dirty, sometimes both at once. He wrote lovingly about them and about cold-blooded murderers.

He had a remarkable life, continuing to work as a policeman years after his writing career took off, quitting only when he became too famous for police work.

Robert D. McFadden at the NY Times::

“I’m very interested in the concept of the sociopath, very interested, because my conscience has bothered me all my life,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1989. “Talk about regrets – I have about 20 every day. I was educated in Catholic schools, and they did that to me. So I have to cope with a conscience all the time. And I’m interested in a creature who has none of that.”

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George Kennedy in The Blue Knight (1976)

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Joseph Wambaugh, cop-turned-best-selling-author, dies at 88

Before Joseph Wambaugh came along, the unofficial bard of the Los Angeles Police Department was Jack Webb, whose unsmiling Sgt. Joe Friday peppered every episode of “Dragnet” with homilies about moral weakness and crime. “Marijuana is the flame, heroin is the fuse, LSD is the bomb,” Friday seethed to a suspect in a 1967 episode. “So don’t you try to equate liquor with marijuana, Mister. Not to…

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Joseph Wambaugh, Author With a Cop’s-Eye View, Is Dead at 88

Joseph Wambaugh, the master storyteller of police dramas, whose books, films and television tales powerfully caught the hard psychic realities of lonely street cops and flawed detectives trapped in a seedy world of greed and senseless brutality, died on Friday at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 88. The cause was esophageal cancer, said Janene Gant, a longtime family friend. In “The…

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Joseph Wambaugh, ex-LAPD officer who wrote ‘The Onion Field’ and other bestsellers, dies at 88

By John Rogers The Associated Press Joseph Wambaugh, who wrote the gripping, true-crime bestseller “The Onion Field” and numerous gritty but darkly humorous novels about day-to-day police work drawn from his own experiences as a Los Angeles police officer, has died at 88. A family friend, Janene Gant, told The New York Times that Wambaugh died Friday at his home in Rancho Mirage, and the cause…

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