The Los Angeles Times Magazine offers an interesting piece with crime writer Michael Connelly interviewing with one of his heroes, Joseph Wambaugh.
(Wambaugh is seen in the above LA Times photo by Andrew MacPherson).
Below is Connelly on Wambaugh:
The cop turned author was writing contemporary novels full of grit and humor and street truth. I found them inspiring—and haunting. I can still remember reading "The Choir Boys" in college and the searing images the story conjured in my imagination. All these years later, I remember the “moaning man” from that book as if I had read the passage yesterday. I was probably too young to understand just what Wambaugh was doing—using the police novel to tell larger stories about ourselves and our world.
At that point, I had not even set foot in Los Angeles—and wouldn’t for another 10 years—but it was a place that came alive in Wambaugh’s stories. His books were entertaining as hell, but they weren’t mere entertainments. They transcended that. They told it like it is.
Here is the assessment of him early on from the New York Times: “Mr. Wambaugh is, in fact, a writer of genuine power, style, wit and originality who has chosen to write about police in particular as a means of expressing his views on society in general.”
You can read the rest of the piece and watch two videos featuring the interview via the below link:
http://www.latimesmagazine.com/2012/03/rhythm-blue.html
Joseph Wambaugh's new novel is called Harbor Nocturne and Michael Connelly's latest novel is called The Drop.
