Customer Reviews

Fugitive Nights

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Lynn Cutter wants only to drink away the days in gorgeous Palm Springs while waiting on the possible arrival of his hoped for disability pension check. When smart, tough, sexy ex-cop turned P.I. Breda Burrows enlists his assistance for a case that she's working on, he agrees to help, against his better judgment. At first the case seems simple enough, socialite Rhonda Devon wants to know why her older husband has been to a sperm bank without her knowledge. Breda figures she can do surveillance on hubby while Lynn uses his police badge to ask some questions and open some doors for her. However, when Devon's husband is spotted meeting a mysterious man who's previously attacked a cop at an airport, then the focus of their case becomes as much about this mysterious "fugitive" as it is about wandering husbands and spousal secrets. Enter a young cop who is way too gung ho for his and everyone else's good, and you have the makings of a typical Wambaugh at his best story. Humor, laced with deadly violence, a mystery that's not exactly what it seems, and characters that grow on you in spite of (or perhaps because of) their faults and foibles.

All of Wambaugh's works tend to be both tragic and funny at the same time, and this one is no exception. However I would rate it as one of his better comic mysteries, using comedy in the old Greek sense of the opposite of tragedy. To tell more would spoil the ending of the book, but I would actually place this book with his less tragic works, such as FINNEGAN'S WEEK, or THE DELTA STAR, and less so with his more tragic tales, like THE SECRETS OF HARRY BRIGHT. Since I'm one of those who enjoys Wambaugh when he's not as much in the dark side of life, this is one of my favorites. Experienced Wambaugh readers should know what I'm talking about here, but I would easily recommend this book to anyone who likes a good mystery, be they long time Wambaugh fans or not. A five-star rating for suspense, a compelling story, sympathetic characters, and a fun read.

Sure, the plot lines are more than a little strange, and I do not mean strange in a good way, but has no one else noticed how unbelievably CLUMSY this book is? I kept reading because one of the plot lines (the more serious one--with the bald fugitive) dragged me along. But it was doggone hard to deal with the style. Maybe I should say lack of style, unless a surfeit of exclamation points counts as "style." I've read Wambaugh's nonfiction in the past, and I've never found it to be particularly ineptly written. Maybe I stumbled on books he spent some time polishing, I dunno. But this book is a wreck. There isn't a graceful descriptive sentence in it, and the dialogue is almost unbearable. Even if it had been well-written, it would be pretty hard to enjoy a book where the dog is the only truly appealing character.

After my career as a street cop in a big city I can tell you that Wambaugh is right on target with his characters. Wambaugh's characters are not what Jack Webb would have approved, but most match people all cops come across after a few decades of street experience. His plots are entertaining with the end product being a book that I cannot set down until the last page is turned.

Joseph Wambaugh is a retired policeman who started writing books in 1970, his first few books were brilliant. An incredible combination of action, drama, humour and thought-provoking themes.

Then the standard dropped. The books became far more focussed on black comedy and the strongest theme (the camaraderie between the beat policemen) of his earlier books disappeared and was replaced by characters (while sometimes interesting) were simply not at the level of the earlier characters. The storylines became weak and in some instances you were left disappointed.

This book was a disappointment. The basic storyline is that there is a man fleeing from the police. We know very little about this man except that he is after a person who he doesn't know the name of but has some clues on where to find their name. Enter the alcoholic policeman on leave pending retirement, he meets a female private detective employed by the wife of a wealthy but secretive man. The duo decide to work together.

The storylines intermingle and the book drags along until the conclusion when you left thinking "Have I missed something? Did a talent like Joseph Wambaugh really write that ending?"

As novels go, it is not the worst you will ever read but new readers of Wambaugh should go to the very beginning of his career and read some top novels, save Fugitive Nights for later.

I have enjoyed Joseph Wambaugh's work in the past but this novel defies explanation. It contains possibly the worst dialogue I have ever read. No one talks the way this man wrote the characters in this book an its so odd based on some of his other work. Maybe he's making fun of people similar to this but I doubt it. The plot is absurd. This is a big miss. I bought this for fifty cents at a library sale and grossly overpaid.

I generally admire Joseph Wambaugh's work, and it's painful to give one of his books such a low rating. But honestly, this lacks all that his classic and even lesser books give us.Paramount is the lack of reality. Wambaugh has the knack of convincing us that his portrayal of the lives of ccops is the way it is, blemishes as well as heroism. But the three cops here as well as the PI lack credibility. The plot itself seems forced and not representative of situations truly faced by those on the police forcce.The humor which animates most Wambaugh books is just plain lame here.As a Californian, I sure didn't recognize the Palm Springs represented here. All in all, this reads like a poor attempt by a writer to sound like Wambaugh.Whatever you do, don't liet this book keep you from reading the author's other books. And don't let this book be your introduction to the author. If you must read it, find his notable books like THE NEW CENTAURIANS, THE CHOIRBOYS, the Hollywood series, etc. to read first.

Wambaugh's plots are always oddball and not always even "mysteries," in the sense that you know from the beginning whodunit, but you go along for the ride anyway, to see what happens. This time, actually, there is a certain amount of mystery, though I don't think it's particularly well handled. Lynn Cutter (a guy) is a police detective in Palm Springs, where Sonny Bono is the mayor and most of the streets are named for actors. He's already got one bad knee and now the other one gets wrecked in the line of duty, so he's waiting not-so-patiently for his fifty-percent disability pension to be approved and drinking his days away at a bar called the Furnace Room. Breda Burrows is a recently retired LAPD cop only a couple years younger that Lynn, though in much better condition (she bikes a lot), who has come to Palm Springs to try to set up as a private investigator. Breda has a wealthy client who wants to know why her husband is apparently having dealings with a sperm bank and she needs Lynn's local contacts to help her acquire information. And Lynn is very taken with her buff calves and the freckle below her lip. Meanwhile, Nelson Hareem (known as "Half Nelson" for his lack of height and "Dirty Hareem" for his overenthusiastic methods) is a patrol cop working at a small, last-chance department at the wrong end of the valley. He's anxious to make a big score, to catch a really important Bad Guy, so the Palm Spring PD will take him on. Mostly, though, he just scares the hell out of his watch commanders. The fourth key character doesn't have a name until late in the book, being known only as "the fugitive." This mystery man got off a small plane with a sputtering engine, went into the airfield's rest room, and immediately cold-cocked a sheriff's deputy who merely wanted to use the facilities. Then he steals a truck and a car and disappears. Nelson, who shouldn't even be involving himself since the airfield is way the hell out of his jurisdiction, immediately thinks "terrorist," starts working the case by himself, and pretty soon it gets tangled up with Breda's domestic case and Lynn's bad knees. Wambaugh drops all sorts of red herrings along the way but never provides any real clues on which the reader can begin to build hypotheses as to what's going on. But his narrative style is not at all up to his usual standards -- in fact, it's downright clumsy. And he seems to feel a need to empty the typecase of all its exclamation points! So the plotline -- when you finally get there -- is pure Wambaugh, and the characters are classic Wambaugh, but the dialogue is like Wambaugh doing a pastiche of himself. There is such an overabundance of sarcastic, cynical similes and allusions, some pages are almost unreadable. Like: "Look at his eyes. They're shiftier'n Iran." Or: "We got lotsa power lines out by Highway Ten that could produce mutants, which might explain this joint." Or: "She's more self-indulgent than a spaghetti western." And it just goes on and on and on and on and. . . .

I did not buy this and I have no idea why I have it on my review list.

This is an exemplary example of NOT judging a book by it's cover. The back of the book insist this is "a hilarious and chilling.......playground for the rich, ...brilliantly suspenseful.."ad nauseum. First I couldn't keep the characters straight because one of the protagonists was a detective named Lynn Cutter. I thought it was a female, which threw me really off track when MR. Cutter gives private investigator Breda Burrows a long look at her blue eyes and long legs. MR. Cutter is a policeman, but one who is hoping he will get into no more trouble until his pension comes through in a matter of months. Along stumbles (literally) Ms. Breda Burrows, a strong woman, but desperately in need of someone with a badge to help her solve the mystery of a rich woman who believes her husband is philandering by giving sperm to a sperm bank. My sympathies and sense of humor lie with Mr. Cutter, who is really a very funny character and brings life into this incredibly boring story. As Breda's guide they must wander through the glazed world of Palm Springs, where they will encounter oddities that don't fit, bodies that shouldn't be dead and loads of money. This book is not captivating enough, even with Mr. Cutter as a lively character to warrant one star.

Though apparently ignored by critics in favour of many shallower and more pretentious "serious" authors, Joseph Wambaugh stands out as one of the few novelists today who deals with serious themes and describes reality as many of us know it. Much of the activity in his work may sound farcical, and the characters and language coarse, yet the underlying theme is always profound, even disturbing. Wambaugh des not hesitate to project (subtly, and disguised by a hardshell worldwiseness) a strong sense of morality and responsibility. This man is not afraid to take a stand on what ultimately he believes is right and wrong - nor, albeit reluctantly, like Luther at Worms, do his characters. They confront realities that most of the rest of us don't even want to acknowledge exist and they do necessary and unpleasant jobs with decency, courage and humour. "Fugitive Nights" reflects some of these themes, but less so than in earlier classics like "The Choirboys" and the unbearably poignant "Glitter Dome". It's nevertheless worth reading - and very entertaining - but could have been better. Don't despair however - "Finnegan's Week" sees Wambaugh back on form.