The New Centurions [Unknown Binding]

Joseph Wambaugh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1987

Ex-cop turned #1 New York Times bestselling writer Joseph Wambaugh forged a new kind of literature with his great early police procedurals. Here in his classic debut novel, Wambaugh presents a stunning, raw, and unforgettable depiction of life behind the thin blue line.





In a class of new police recruits, Augustus Plebesly is fast and scared. Roy Fehler is full of ideals. And Serge Duran is an ex-marine running away from his Chicano childhood. In a few weeks they'll put on the blue uniform of the LAPD. In months they'll know how to interpret the mad babble of the car radio, smell danger, trap a drug dealer, hide a secret, and-most of all-live with the understanding that cops are different from everyone else. But for these men, these new centurions, time is an enemy. The year is 1960. The streets are burning with rage. And before they can grow old on this job, they'll have to fight for their lives...

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Unknown Binding: 368 pages
• Publisher: Dell; 1st Edition edition (March 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440164176
• ISBN-13: 978-0440164173
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.8 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #172,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joseph Wambaugh, a former LAPD detective sergeant, is the bestselling author of eighteen prior works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Choirboys and The Onion Field. Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times' said, "Joseph Wambaugh is one of those Los Angeles authors whose popular success always has overshadowed his importance as a writer. Wambaugh is an important writer not simply because he's ambitious and technically accomplished, but also because he 'owns' a critical slice of L.A.'s literary real estate: the Los Angeles Police Department -- not just its inner workings, but also its relationship to the city's political establishment and to its intricately enmeshed social classes. There is no other American metropolis whose civic history is so inextricably intertwined with the history of its police department. That alone would make Wambaugh's work significant, but the importance of his best fiction and nonfiction is amplified by his unequaled ability to capture the nuances of the LAPD's isolated and essentially Hobbesian tribal culture."
Understandably, then, Wambaugh, who lives in California, is known as the "cop-author" with emphasis on the former, since, according to him, most of his fantasies involve the arrest and prosecution of half of California's motorists. Wambaugh still prefers the company of police officers and interviews hundreds of them for story material. However, he is aghast that these days most of the young cops drink iced tea or light beer, both of which he finds exceedingly vile, causing him to obsessively fume with Hamlet that, 'The time is out of joint.' He expects to die in a road rage encounter. For more information please visit www.josephwambaugh.net or www.hollywoodmoon.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a rough and surprisingly beautiful novel, April 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The New Centurions

I have to admit that Wambaugh's subsequent books (with the exception of The Onion Field) have been major disappointments. Perhaps that is because this, his first novel, is such a wonderful and complete book. Everything else seems to be a valient yet failed effort to recapture to wonder and confusion of this bristling masterwork. It deals with the trials, triupmhs and personal failures of three young cops, the now stock characters of the confused kid, the inept failure trying to make something out of himself and the brainy, yet physically weak intellectual who tries to out smart every situation. It takes them from academy training up through the Watts riots of 1965. The characters are real, innately believable and sympathetic and abhorrent and cruel. I loved this book. With the exception of the brutal novels of James Ellroy, there is no better "cop" fiction available, and it is infinately more realistic than Ellroy's work because we get the sense that Wambaugh truly was there at these events, that he honestly understand s what it is like to be young and scared with a gun and a badge when the whole world is falling apart. It took about four or five books before Wambaugh became just another second rate crime novelist. This is the finest of his almost true-crime fiction. Likely you will burn through this absorbing novel in the shortest time possible. Compelling, funny, action-packed and sad, this is a wonderful book that, within its ever growing sub-genre, will likely never be equaled.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent examination of what makes cops tick, November 1, 2002

By 

Plaque "Plaque" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New Centurions

"The New Centurions" came as a bit of a surprise to me. I read other Wambaugh works, but they were written more recently. This book was written back in the early part fo Wambaugh's career, and I feel under the false assumption that it was going to be inferior.
Boy, was I wrong. This is the most honest and perfect police novel I have ever read, and I liked it more than the author's later work (which I love).
"The New Centurions" focuses on the lives of three Los Angeles cops from bot camp to their 5 year anniversary on the force. Not a police procedural, the emphasis is rather on the lives of the characters and the various experiences they go through as police officers. Alternately brutal, funny, smart, sad, warm, philosophical, and ugly, "The New Centurions" is an extremely well-done piece of realistic fiction. These characters could be real.
I won't spoil anything here, but I have to recommend this book to anyone interested in the cop lifestyle. I'm going to give this book to my brother who has contemplated becoming a police officer, since I think the realism here can be an eye-opener.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Realistic Cop Indoctrination., February 14, 2001

By 

Christopher B. Jonnes "author of BIG ICE and... (Stillwater, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The New Centurions

A centurion was literally a Roman officer in charge of a hundred-man contingent of soldiers in a legion of three to six thousand men. They were the front-line leaders who issued forth from Rome for five hundred years, beating barbarians into submission and maintaining law and order throughout the empire. Wambaugh applies this moniker to his unique tale of three rookies issuing forth from the police academy, fresh and idealistic as they set about to clean up Los Angeles.

They have a lot to learn. As it turns out, right and wrong aren't always clearly black and white. Bad guys populate both sides of the law. Rules are subject to interpretation. Justice is slow and convoluted. And life is not fair.

Wambaugh brings his unique real-life experience in LAPD to bear on this story, showing the maturation of cops in believable fashion. The book is a little dated in terms of police procedure, but the underlying story and message are same-day fresh. This is a cut above the typical cop's tale. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.