He crashed into the chased car, bending his police car in half and killing the suspect. Jones' greatest lapse was to join in a car chase when he should have been driving a handcuffed suspect to headquarters. Before learning how he got lost in the desert and stumbled upon a wrecked car containing the burnt and shot-up corpse of a young man, the reader must digest several pages on Jones' incompetence in his previous stint as a patrolman in Palm Springs, Calif.

Jones, policeman and sole witness to the aftermath of the novel's central mystery. The low comedy is generally a thing of the past: Whenever a new character appears, an outlandish anecdote from his or her background can't be far behind.Ĭonsider O.A. Such, at least, is the impression left by 'The Secrets of Harry Bright,' a schizoid novel whose plot veers from farcical episodes involving Keystone Kops with indefatigable libidos to dark interludes of fathers mourning dead sons. What this means is that legions of reading Americans probably believe the average cop is a buffoon behind a badge.

Wambaugh's appeal rests in part on an insider's perspective: He used to be a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. My copy of his newest, 'The Secrets of Harry Bright,' has 149,999 fellows in its first printing alone.

Joseph Wambaugh's novels about police life - 'The Choirboys,' 'The Delta Star,' 'The Glitter Dome' - sell like hot Hill Street cakes.

The choirboys by joseph wambaugh