The Onion Field by Joseph Wambaugh

The Onion Field by Joseph Wambaugh

Hollywood. 1963. A Saturday night. A broken taillight leads to a routine traffic stop. It shouldn't have changed the lives of the four men involved, but it did. Before the night was over, one was dead, two would find themselves facing the death penalty, and the other's life would never be the same again. Fresh from a string of robberies, the car contained two desperate men who got the drop on the two LAPD cops who stopped them, seized their guns and kidnapped them. They then drove to a rural onion field where they decided to execute the cops. One officer was able to escape, but only at the price of his partner's life. Haunted by horrific memories, wracked by guilt, ostracized by his own, and repeatedly tormented by defence attorneys in one retrial after another as the defendants manipulate the quicksilver legal system, this cop suffered emotional meltdown. Wambaugh takes us meticulously through the crime, second by second, and then tells the surviving cop's powerful and moving story: the destruction of a forgotten victim. The Onion Field is Joseph Wambaugh's best-known and most celebrated work. It may be based on a true story, but it reads like a novel, much like Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.

A complex story of tragic proportions..more ambitious than In Cold Blood and equally compelling - New York Times

Joseph Wambaugh served with the LAPD for fourteen years. His first novel, The New Centurions, was published in 1971 to international acclaim and success. He followed this with a series of highly acclaimed novels including The Choirboys and, of course, The Onion Field, which he then personally produced as one of the 'best cop movies ever made'. He also created the hugely popular and influential TV series, Police Story. He is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and lives in southern California.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781847243515
ISBN 10	1847243517
Title	The Onion Field
Author	Joseph Wambaugh
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Quercus Publishing
Year published	2008-05-08
Number of pages	496
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable