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You are here: Home > Authors > Wambaugh, Joseph

VJ Books Presents Joseph Wambaugh!

Joseph Wambaugh transformed the sub-genre of the police novel into serious literature that was both harrowing and humorous, comic and tragic. His first four books and his work on the Police Story television series in the 1970s, set new standards for subsequent writers, and many acknowledge their debt to him.

At the age of seventeen he graduated from high school and joined the U.S.Marine Corps for three years. While a Marine he married his high school sweetheart, Dee Allsup, and when off-duty began taking college classes. After his discharge he worked at Kaiser Steel Mill in California, and continued his studies as a part-time student at Chaffey College. He later became a full-time student at California State University, Los Angeles, subsidized by the G.I. Bill. He majored in English, and earned his B.A. degree just before his 23^rd birthday, intending to become an English teacher.

He happened to learn that LAPD cops were making more money than teachers, with better benefits and a more exciting job. “Almost on impulse” he took the tests and joined the Los Angeles Police Department on May 2^nd 1960. During his first eight years as a cop he worked many assignments in various police divisions, and returned during his off-duty hours to his alma mater where he studied English and Spanish. He received his M.A. degree in 1968 while working as a detective sergeant at Hollenbeck Station in the barrio of Los Angeles where he found plenty of opportunity to use his Spanish. He began to "moonlight," writing about life on the city streets. Nobody other than Dee knew that he was a “closet scribbler,” but by late 1970 everyone would know.

Wambaugh and his wife raised three children and he stayed a cop through three best sellers, but eventually his growing fame made police work impossible for him and his colleagues. People would call the station with bogus crimes and ask for Sgt. Wambaugh to solve them. Suspects he arrested asked for acting roles in film adaptations. When, after multiple appearances on virtually every TV talk show, his longtime detective partner actually opened the car door for him he knew it was time to go. With regret he resigned from the LAPD in 1974 after fourteen years of service, but the scribbling never stopped.