Joseph Wambaugh, a former Los Angeles Police Department detective sergeant, is the bestselling author of 17 works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Choirboys and The Onion Field. In 2004, he was named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. His new novel, Hollywood Crows, was published earlier this month by Little, Brown.
On your nightstand now:
The Overlook by Michael Connelly.
Favorite book when you were a child:
The Call of the Wild by Jack London.
Your top five authors:
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tom Wolfe, Stephen King, Joseph Heller, Evelyn Waugh.
Book you've faked reading:
Everything of Henry James assigned by professors.
Book you are an evangelist for:
Moby-Dick, simply the greatest novel ever.
Book you've bought for the cover:
None, but I greatly admire the original cover of All Quiet on the Western Front with the haunted face of a German soldier.
Book that changed your life:
Catch-22, where I learned how tragedy and horror can be depicted though dark comedy, and In Cold Blood, where I learned how to write a "nonfiction novel."
Favorite line from a book:
Raymond Chandler on the nerve-wracking Santa Ana winds: "Anything can happen; you can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge."
Book you most want to re-read:
The Great Gatsby, a big story in few words.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Brideshead Revisited, for its poignancy.