Joseph Wambaugh, who wrote the gripping, true-crime bestseller "The Onion Field" and numerous gritty but darkly humorous novels about day-to-day police work drawn from his own experiences as a Los Angeles police officer,

In 1971, eleven years after joining the LAPD, Wambaugh saw his first novel, The New Centurions, published by Little, Brown and Co. The story of rookie LAPD cops in the early 1960s became his first bestseller and, the following year, the first movie based on his work. The film adaptation starred George C. Scott and Stacy Keach.

In novels like “The Glitter Dome” and nonfiction works like “The Onion Field,” he took a harsh, unglamorous look at the realities of law enforcement.

He wrote 'The Onion Field,' 'The New Centurions' and 'The Blue Knight' and created the realistic anthology series 'Police Story.'