Joe Wambaugh

HAILED AS THE FATHER of the modern police novel, Joe Wambaugh is still giving birth to the best of the genre. A former Los Angeles police detective, he’s penned 17 fiction and nonfiction books, all with the backdrop of law enforcement. His first, The New
Centurions, published in 1971, was an instant critical and popular success. Later novels were set in Orange County, Palm
Springs and San Diego. His newest, Hollywood Station (just out from Little, Brown), marks a return to his roots in the LAPD after
a 20-year absence. It’s drawn advance raves from critics and colleagues, including novelists Michael Connelly and Jonathan Kellerman, both of whom acknowledge him as an inspiration. Wambaugh and his wife, Dee, have homes in San Diego and Palm Springs.

TOM BLAIR: Your last novel was published a decade ago. And then you talked of retirement. Five years later, you came back with the Edgar Award–winning nonfiction work Fire Lover. And again you talked about retiring. Now you’re back with a new novel. So I guess the question is: Are you going to stop retiring now?

JOE WAMBAUGH: Yes, I’m going to behave myself.

TB: What inspired the comeback?

JW: First of all, James Ellroy, the author of Black Dahlia, told me somebody had to write a novel about the LAPD in 2006—somebody who had the knowledge of how the department was in years past. When it was the police department all others tried to emulate—before it was taken over by the federal government in a civil-rights consent decree, in the wake of the Rodney King event and Rampart scandal. Ellroy said I was the only one with the perspective to do it. So I decided to see if I could get in contact with some good cop storytellers at Hollywood Station. Why? Because Hollywood is at the center of LAPD. And there are more characters there. Everyone in the world knows that magical world of Hollywood. Or we think we know it.

TB: You don’t start with a plot, then?

JW: I don’t have a clue. It’s always been that way with my novels. So I began doing interviews—always four cops at a time. Three isn’t enough to get the juice flowing. And I never mix genders. It’s either four male cops or four females. If you mix them, it’s like the playground: The boys will get so macho they’ll overpower the girls, and the girls will get resentful and clam up. But the best stories come from the women, because the women are more verbal—they’re not afraid to reveal their emotions. And to communicate
emotion is what the novelist does.

TB: Men don’t communicate as easily.

JW: Well, men require two and a half drinks to open up. Women? Just sniff the cork.

TB: How did it feel to go back to your roots? How much has the department changed in two decades, and how have the cops changed?

JW: The LAPD now is under the oversight of the federal government—for three more years. And it’s impossible for them to be doing proactive police work with the federal government second-guessing everything they do—requiring paperwork on top of paperwork. When I was there, it was rock ’n’ rule. Now, it’s embarrassing, humiliating. So the time was ripe; this was the time to write about it.

TB: You’ve written a couple of novels with San Diego as a backdrop. But to me, the L.A. stories seemed more compelling; more interesting. Did San Diego work as well for you?

JW: Oh, I think it worked. Because cop stories are cop stories, I don’t care where you are. In fact, a goodly number of the stories and scenes that take place in this new novel were given to me by San Diego cops. Fifty-four cops’ names are listed in the acknowledgments; 20 of them are San Diego cops.

TB: In reviews of your writing, the words “cynical” and “cynicism” keep popping up. Are you a cynic?

JW: Yes. You know, police work makes people cynical. I don’t want to be a cynic. I truly want to be more hopeful. But police work is for cynics.

TB: How do cops survive their own cynicism? We hear the suicide rate is high among police. The divorce rate is high . . .

JW: And addiction.

TB: All those things. But is it about how people come out of police work, or does it have something to do with the kind of people who go into it?

JW: I don’t think so. I think when they go in, they’re naive. I know I was. But it happens. It’s bound to happen. And it’s not just that you deal with the worst people. You deal with ordinary people—at their worst. That’s what breaks down the barrier and creates young cynics. And true cynics are a danger to themselves. Being a young cynic can lead to all sorts of horrendous conduct.

TB: So you admit being a cynic—though you say you’re trying hard not to be one. What’s the difference between a cynic and a pessimist? Are you a pessimist about the future—for law enforcement, for example?

JW: I’m always a cynic, but I’m not a pessimist. Yet. I think Los Angeles can be saved, but it’s pretty close to the edge. For example, I’ve always had a soft spot for Latino people— specifically Mexican. They’re in all of my books. It’s where I came from. I worked hard to learn Spanish when I was a cop working the barrio. Now, having said that, three weeks ago I go to Hollywood, because I’m thinking already about doing a sequel to Hollywood Station, and I have a few interviews scheduled. I get off on Alvarado Street, which I knew very well in my old days as a cop. And I’m driving down Alvarado, and it suddenly hits me: If I had been blindfolded and put in my car and driven down Alvarado, and then the blindfold was taken off, and someone said, “Where are you?” I would not have said the United States of America. I would have said, “Well, maybe I’m in Tijuana.” And I was so shaken by that, because I wasn’t aware of what had happened. And I just wanted to scream out to the Latino people, “Assimilate! Assimilate!” All immigrants want to stay in touch with their roots. Fine. Look at Little Tokyo, or Chinatown. They want to keep their traditions, and they keep them. But they educate their children. The immigrants come over, they can’t speak English, but their children win the English spelling bees in school. I was just so disheartened by the scene on Alvarado Street.

TB: You’ve been pretty outspoken about justice in America, particularly about the future of the jury system. You once said, “I certainly believe it’s over for the jury system, but we won’t admit it for a while.” Is there a reasonable alternative?

JW: Professional jurors. Not judges; professional jurors. People who are educated about DNA—and not from watching CSI on television. In my book, you’ll see all the problems detectives run into are with people who watch CSI. The detectives at Hollywood Station can never measure up to the ones on CSI. But jurors are now starting to nullify verdicts because the cops didn’t do what they do on CSI.

TB: How would a professional jury work?

JW: I’m not sure. But we’d have a pool of people who’ve qualified, somehow, through training and testing. And they’d get paid a reasonable amount of money to sit on a jury, not $5 a day. And why does the verdict have to be 12-0? What else do we encounter in life where we could find 12 people who’d agree on anything?

TB: Are there two kinds of justice in America— one for the rich and famous and another for the rest of us?

JW: To an extent, sure. I mean, could an O.J. Simpson be playing golf today if he wasn’t rich and famous? Hell, no. But I think it’s about celebrity more than riches. You can hire a good lawyer if you’re rich. But there are some damn good public defenders who can do a hell of a job, too. Robert Blake [tried for murdering his wife] beat it because of his celebrity, not his lawyer. And I know it was celebrity that saved O.J. When they picked his jury, I said, “O.J.’s going to walk and be grand marshal of the Rose Parade next year.” I missed that, but I did say he’d be acquitted.

TB: You’ve been quoted as saying, “As a cop, I dealt with every kind of bum and criminal. They all have more integrity than some Hollywood people.” And “If I didn’t stand with my back to the wall, Hollywood people would unscrew my ass and sell it down the river.” Your books haven’t always had great success in translation to TV and movies. But Hollywood Station has already been optioned for a weekly series. Are you optimistic this time?

JW: I am. I guess because I have the number-one man for television shows these days, David E. Kelley, behind this as producer. He created The Practice; Doogie Howser, M.D.; Boston Legal; Ally McBeal; Picket Fences; Chicago Hope. And he’s married to Michelle Pfeiffer. Is that enough? If you’ve seen any of his shows, you know he has a bent sense of humor. His people say he and I are a great fit. We didn’t call him. He called and said, “I want to preempt any offer you might get.” He wants me to cowrite the pilot. You know—even before he called—for the first time I had thought of one of my books for television, not for a feature film. Because the characters are so big, and the material is so rich, that I thought this could go on and on and on. So when he called and said TV series, I thought, “My God, this is just serendipitous.”

TB: All of your novels are laced with humor—often gallows humor, but humor. It has to be tough to be a cop, but with all of the violence and risk and sadness, your cops laugh and play, too.

JW: There’s a scene in Hollywood Station where the wise old police sergeant, the one they call The Oracle, is taking roll call one morning. This is right after one of their own, a woman cop posing as a hooker on Sunset Boulevard, is violently attacked. And all the officers are griefstricken and enraged by it. It’s a very serious time. And for a few moments, The Oracle loses control of the assembly. Finally, he steps up and, in essence, expresses the entire theme of Hollywood Station—a theme I’ve implied throughout my career, but never specifically stated. And this, I think, is where my work differs from all kinds of stuff like Crash or The Badge or The Departed. The Oracle tells the cops that, bottom line, at the end of the day, “Doing good police work is fun. The most fun you will ever have your entire lives. So go out there tonight and have yourself some fun.” And that is what good police work is about. You think it’s about the money? It’s about the fun.

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