JOSEPH WAMBAUGH – The Choirboys. Delacorte, hardcover, 1975. Reprint paperback: Dell, 1976. Reprinted many times since. Film: Lorimar, 1978; screenwriter: Christopher Knopf; director: Robert Aldrich.

   The powerful opening of this novel takes place in a cave in Vietnam in 1967. Two unnamed marines have taken shelter there from the enemy, and one of them suffers a severe emotional break. Although we do not learn their identities until much later in the book, we can surmise that this incident provides the fuel for future tragedy.

   The scene then shifts to Los Angeles nearly ten years later The “choirboys” are a group of policemen who attend “choir practice” — otherwise known as drinking binges — in MacArthur Park after going off night duty . We are told that a tragedy has taken place during one of these sessions and that a young man has been shot to death.

   Wambaugh then goes into flashback and takes us through the months prior to this final choir practice, introducing us to the participants, allowing us to glimpse their routine — and not-so-routine — tours of duty.

   We come to know intimately such characters as Roscoe Rules, the meanest and probably most despicable man in the precinct; Aaron Mobley, a twenty-five-year-old alcoholic who somehow still manages to function on the job; Francis Tanaguchi, a Nisei who feels more Mexican than Japanese; Spermwhale Whalen, a veteran cop who has a big stake in making it to his twenty-year retirement date; Sam Niles and Howard Bloomguard, physical opposites who nonetheless complement one another as partners; Spencer Van Moot, who can wangle a “freebie” out of any merchant he meets; Baxter Slate, whose “different” quality is hard for his fellow cops to pin down.

   With frequent black humor, Wambaugh shows us both the strengths and weaknesses of his characters, as well as the daily strains, sordidness, and departmental hypocrisy with which they must cope. And when tragedy finally befalls them, the only surprise is that it hasn’t happened sooner.

   This is a first-rate novel that goes several steps beyond the standard police procedural. It was filmed in 1977, starring Charles Durning and Perry King. Among Wambaugh’s other novels of the police world are The Black Marble (1978) and The Secrets of Harry Bright (1985).

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   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.