ABSTRACT
Joseph Wambaugh has almost single-handedly created a new popular genre, the cop as hero. The latest example of this, The Choirboys, has now hit our screens. Wambaugh's world is divided into two kinds of people. At its centre are blue-coated knights riding their black-and-white patrol cars through a concrete jungle of 'ass-holes'. The film spin-offs of Wambaugh's novels have ranged from the pleasing (The New Centurions – Precinct 45, Los Angeles Police in Britain), through the satisfactory (The Blue Knight), to the downright disaster of The Choirboys. At one level, Wambaugh's novels and their film derivatives simply reflect this cycle. But unlike the others, they are not crime stories. The Wambaugh stories are quite different. They show the real-life police chores, including being 'philosopher, guide and friend' to people in trouble, rounding up prostitutes or spying on gays, or coming across a robbery in progress.
