was tried on female cops,' only to find herself surrounded by adolescent males in her new career. She's weathered the worst of 'the male bonding that was an important part of police life, that weenie-welding experience where every practical joke. The connecting glue is a variation on Wambaugh's usual offbeat collection of cops and ex-cops.īreda Burrows is a no-nonsense retired L.A. It's both a valentine to the movies - chock full of movie jokes, parodies and allusions - and a reminder that no one's been able to tell the difference between Hollywood hype and Washington spin doctors for years. Wambaugh's latest novel is part madcap caper and part political satire.

Setting the tone for 'Fugitive Nights' is the mayor of Palm Springs, a man who used to sing 'I Got You, Babe' and now contemplates a run for the Senate. He mixes golf in the desert with a few 'leftover' Gulf War mementos CEOs who earn $5 million a year in 'bonuses' with Mexican busboys who don fezzes to serve Japanese businessmen in Moroccan restaurants clandestine landing strips with private streets, guards and dogs. If Joseph Wambaugh wrote from a few hundred miles farther south, we'd all have silly things to say like 'Ay, Dios mio, Mexico sure is surreal.' Instead, the most prolific former LAPD cop-turned-novelist has set up shop in the Golden Orange.

The Golden Orange by Joseph Wambaugh