The Secrets of Harry Bright

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. Wambaugh draws contrasts by depicting the fictional Mineral Springs, a small wind-swept desert town populated not just by blue-collar tourist industry workers, but "ex-cons, bikers, crank dealers, Palm Springs burglars, nudists, robbers and pimps, horny kite pilots, dopers and drunks." The Secrets of Harry Bright first appeared on the New York Times best seller list on October 6, 1985, ranked 15th, and rose as high as 5th. It spent a total of 17 weeks on the list. Themes As with his other novels beginning with The Black Marble, Wambaugh spins his tale from numerous points of view, but has as its central character and protagonist a competent, middle aged but dissipated detective sergeant whose age and police experience mirror that of Wambaugh himself, and where he likely would have been had he not resigned from the LAPD.