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Harbour Nocturne

by Joseph Wambaugh

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.

Head of Zeus * Crime Fiction

01 Jan 2013 * 336pp * £16.99 * 9781908800558

REVIEWS

'[The] stories of real-life policing are odd, tragic, hilarious and always compelling ... A worthy addition to the canon of the author known as the father of the modern police novel, Harbour Nocturne should not be missed'

Observer

'Joseph Wambaugh is on fine form in Harbour Nocturne'

Sunday Telegraph

'I am a huge fan of Joseph Wambaugh – the former L.A.P.D. detective named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. Wambaugh writes the best Hollywood cop novels – gritty, outrageous, hysterically funny, sad and obviously based on his crazy life as an L.A.P.D. detective. He has it down pat; the characters leap off the pages and take you on a raunchy ride. Wambaugh's books never disappoint'

Jackie Collins

'The always hilarious antics of Hollywood's finest'

Irish Times

'His books are so good they make me feel like quitting my job and doing something else'

Lee Child

'Wambaugh at his best!'

Michael Connelly

'Without Wambaugh, the lives of many readers would be smaller. Including mine'

Stephen King

Author

Joseph Wambaugh

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).

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