The Secrets of Harry Bright

Blurb

The Secrets of Harry Bright is the seventh novel written by former Los Angeles Police Department detective Joseph Wambaugh. Published in 1985, the book continues a pattern of Wambaugh crime fiction beginning with The Choirboys that uses black humor to explore the psychological effects of prolonged stress on veteran police officers. As with all his novels, The Secrets of Harry Bright, set in November 1984, is contemporaneous with the time frame in which it was written and includes numerous allusions and references to events and personalities of the time.
The Secrets of Harry Bright also continued Wambaugh's satirization of the mores and extravagances of the Southern California "rich and famous" lifestyle that began with The Black Marble, in addition to its focus on police work. The novel, set in and around Palm Springs, California, savages a wealthy "occasional home" mentality characterized by golf, excessive drinking and drug use, and discriminatory country clubs.