The Golden Orange

Joseph Wambaugh

MysteriousPress.com/Open Road, Nov 29, 2011 - Fiction - 306 pages

Ex-cop Winnie Farlowe has been retired from police work due to a back injury, and has been fighting the bottle instead of bad guys ever since. But suddenly he meets Tess Binder, a stunning, three-time divorcée from the Balboa Bay Club where wallets are fat, bikinis are skimpy, and cosmetic surgery is one sure way to a billionaire’s bank account. She believes her father’s suicide was actually a murder and wants Winnie to help her prove it. Death and chicanery flourish amidst ranches, mansions, and yachting parties. Publishers Weekly called it “comic and deeply moving . . .  a stupendous climax . . . virtually sure to be hailed as Wambaugh’s best.” And the San Diego Union-Tribune said, “a profoundly serious work and in reading it I laughed my head off.”

About the author

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 in 1974. His first novel, The New Centurions (1971), was a quick success, drawing praise for its realistic action and intelligent characterization, and was adapted into a feature film starring George C. Scott. He followed it up with The Blue Knight (1972), which was adapted into a mini-series starring William Holden and Lee Remick. 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 men struggling with a difficult job, a depiction taken mainstream by television’s Police Story, which Wambaugh helped create in the mid-1970s. In addition to novels, Wambaugh has 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 work is the novel Hollywood Moon (2010).

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Golden Orange
• Author: Joseph Wambaugh
• Edition: unabridged
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road, 2011
• ISBN: 1453234241, 9781453234242
• Length: 306 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Police Procedural