This image is the cover for the book Blue Knight

Blue Knight

New York Times–Bestselling Author: A novel of a cop on the edge that “capture[s] the excitement, terror, pity, and occasional tedium of police work” (The Boston Globe).

Twenty and two. Those are the numbers turning in the mind of William “Bumper” Morgan: twenty years on the job, two days before he pulls the pin and walks away from it forever. But on the streets of L.A., people look at Bumper like some kind of knight in armor—they’ve plied him with come-ons, hot tips, and the hard respect a man can’t earn anywhere else. Now, with a new job and a good woman waiting for him, a kinky thief terrorizing L.A.’s choice hotels, and a tragedy looming, Bumper Morgan is about to face the only thing that can scare him: the demons he’s been hiding behind his bright and shiny badge . . .

Ex-cop-turned-Edgar Award-winning author Joseph Wambaugh forged a new kind of literature with his great early police procedurals. The Blue Knight is Wambaugh at his best—a gritty, luminous, and ultimately stunning story of a street cop on the hardest beat of his life.

“The portrait of Bumper has force and authenticity . . . abounds in vivid vignettes of police life and the Los Angeles streets.” —The New York Times

“A bang-up job.” —The Boston Globe

“Hard-hitting, tough-talking, utterly realistic.” —Publishers Weekly

Joseph Wambaugh, Michael Connelly

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).

Grand Central Publishing