A PI enlists a down-on-his-luck cop to help find a fugitive sperm donor After twenty years in the Los Angeles Police Department, Breda Burroughs is happy to trade her badge for a private agency in sunny Palm Springs. But when a strange case requires her to go someplace only cops are allowed, she finds that for the first time ever she needs a partner. She should not have asked Lynn Cutter.   A woman has hired Breda to find her missing husband—an impotent rich man who, for some reason, has been donating to sperm banks. Breda needs Lynn because the banks don't have to give up their records to anyone but the police, but Lynn is too nasty for a case this sensitive. A veteran cop with two busted knees, he helps Breda because he needs the money. What he gets instead is a wild chase across the Southwest, risking his life to find a man that no one really missed in the first place.

Review"With each book, it seems, Mr. Wambaugh's skill as a writer increases . . . . In Lines And Shadows he gives an off-trail, action-packed true account of police work and the intimate lives of policemen that, for my money, is his best book yet."--The New York Times Book Review. "A saga of courage, craziness, brutality and humor . . . . One of his best books, comparable to The Onion Field for storytelling and revelatory power."--Chicago Sun-TimesFrom the PublisherNot since Joseph Wambaugh's best-selling The Onion Field has there been a true police story as fascinating, as totally gripping as . . .Lines And Shadows. The media hailed them as heroes. Others denounced them as lawless renegades. A squad of tough cops called the Border Crime Task Force. A commando team 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. The task force plan was simple. They would disguise themselves as illegal aliens. They would confront the murderous shadows of the night. Yet each time they walked into the violent blackness along the border, they came closer to another boundary line--a fragile line within each man. and crossing it meant destroying their sanity and their lives. "With each book, it seems, Mr. Wambaugh's skill as a writer increases . . . . In Lines And Shadows he gives an off-trail, action-packed true account of police work and the intimate lives of policemen that, for my money, is his best book yet."--The New York Times Book Review. "A saga of courage, craziness, brutality and humor . . . . One of his best books, comparable to The Onion Field for storytelling and revelatory power."--Chicago Sun-Times

When LAPD cops Hollywood Nate and Bix Rumstead find themselves caught up with bombshell Margot Aziz, they think they're just having some fun. But in Hollywood, nothing is ever what it seems. To them, Margot is a harmless socialite, stuck in the middle of an ugly divorce from the nefarious nightclub-owner Ali Aziz. What Nate and Bix don't know is that Margot's no helpless victim: the femme fatale is setting them both up. But Ms. Aziz isn't the only one with a deadly plan. In HOLLYWOOD CROWS, Wambaugh returns once again to the beat he knows best, taking readers on a tightly plotted and darkly funny ride-along through Los Angeles with a cast of flawed cops and eccentric lowlifes they won't soon forget.

Russian-American detective A. A. Valnikov is a burned-out homicide detective who gets teamed with Natalie Zimmerman, twice-divorced with a grudge against men. These unlikely partners are assigned the strange case of a stolen show dog being held for ransom. In this bittersweet tale that the "Los Angeles Times" called "terrifying and romantic," the partners will find much more than they ever could have imagined. "Cosmopolitan "called it "fast, colorful and gripping . . . as touching as it is breathlessly entertaining."

An alcoholic ex-cop falls head over heels for an Orange County gold digger Prenuptial agreements have not been kind to Tess Binder. Although briefly married to the 303rd richest man in the world, their marriage contract ensured that she got nothing when he left her for a manicurist he met playing singles at the John Wayne Tennis Club. A Westport lifestyle is expensive, and without a husband to subsidize it, Tess will be broke soon. In need of a sucker, she calls on Winnie Farlowe.   An ex-cop with a bad back and an even worse drinking habit, Winnie recently achieved notoriety by piloting a ferry while blackout drunk. He rammed three yachts but, killing no one, got off with probation. Though Tess is miles out of his league, he doesn't ask questions when she throws herself at him. Drunk on love, Winnie Farlowe is heading for the worst hangover he's ever had.

An ambitious firefighter hunts a notorious arsonist in the Edgar Award–winning true crime story the New York Times calls "stranger than fiction." From Joseph Wambaugh, the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of such classics as The Onion Field and The Choirboys, comes the extraordinary story of the chase for the "Pillow Pyro," called the most prolific American arsonist of the twentieth century. Growing up in Los Angeles, John Orr idolized law enforcement. However, after being rejected by both the LAPD and LAFD, he settled for a position with the Glendale Fire Department. There, he rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a fire captain and one of Southern California's best-known and most respected arson investigators. But Orr led another, unseen life, one that included womanizing and an insatiable thirst for recognition. While Orr busted a slew of petty arsonists, there was one serial criminal he...

It's the wildest bar in Chinatown, run by a proprietor named Wing who will steal your bar change every chance he gets. On payday the groupies mingle there with off-duty LAPD cops, including homicide detectives Martin Welborn and Al Mackey, who get assigned the case of a murdered Hollywood studio boss who may have been involved in some very strange and dangerous filmmaking. Hilarious at times, heartbreaking at others, this book was likened by theNew York Daily News to a "one-two combination that leaves the reader reeling." "Let us dispel forever the notion that Mr. Wambaugh is only a former cop who happens to write books. . . . This would be tantamount to saying that Jack London was first and foremost a sailor. Mr. Wambaugh is, in fact, a writer of genuine power, style, wit and originality." -The New York Times Book Review "Wambaugh's cops, like the soldiers in Catch-22, are men and women in a frenzy, zany grotesques made that way by the outrageous nature of the things they deal with." -Los Angeles Times Book Review " Wambaugh is] a good writer who becomes better with each successive book." -The Detroit News "Wambaugh sidesteps all the cliches." -The Baltimore Sun 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 to write fulltime in 1974. His first novel, The New Centurions (1971), was a quick success, drawing praise for its realistic action and intelligent characterization. He followed it up with The Blue Knight (1972), which was adapted into a feature film and allowed him to retire from the force. 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 people struggling with a difficult job, a depiction taken mainstream by the television drama Police Story, which Wambaugh helped create in the mid-1970s. Wambaugh has also 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 novel is Hollywood Moon (2009).