Finnegan's Week

From Publishers Weekly Wambaugh ( Fugitive Nights ) is at the top of his form here and probably destined for another visit to the bestseller lists. His cop characters are marvelous as usual, deftly characterized in dialogue, attitude (much of it political this time, as the setting is last year's presidential election) and behavior. Even tertiary characters, whether good guys or bad, are skillfully drawn. The villain of the piece is Jules Temple, the son of a wealthy lawyer who takes up the toxic waste business after being disinherited. In Mexico, two of Temple's truck drivers dump a shipment of a lethal pesticide and then decide to rob the Navy base where they were supposed to make a pickup. This brings matters to the attention of an unlikely threesome: Nell Salter, a DA Investigator into environmental crimes; Bobbie Ann Doggett, a young Navy command investigator; and Finbar Finnegan, a San Diego police detective who'd rather be an actor. The women, each in her own way, almost make Fin forget the thrice-married misery of his past. It's a raunchy and often hilarious tale as Fin, Nell and Bobbie Ann try to sort things out until justice is finally served up in a most fitting manner. 300,000 first printing; major ad/promo; BOMC alternate; author tour. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews After a so-so show in Fugitive Nights (1991), Wambaugh returns nearly in top form with a very funny suspenser about toxic waste. Finbar Finnegan, a San Diego police detective and sometime actor, has a midlife crisis at 45, his existence having been dominated by three sisters while growing up and by three ex-wives as an adult. His theme song is ``Someone to Watch Over Me''--he needs a mommy/wife, has sworn off marriage, but finds himself tied ticklingly to two female detectives at once, both of whom see him as romantically interesting despite immense shortcomings: happy, cheerful, pistol-packing Petty Officer ``Ba-a-d Dog'' Bobbie Ann Doggett, 28, an investigator for the Navy who's looking for 2,000 boots hijacked from a warehouse; and District Attorney's Investigator Nell Salter, 43, once divorced, and looking for a stolen truck filled with supertoxic waste. The truck actually was ``stolen'' by its tow drivers--porky meth-head Shelby Pate and his Mexican sidekick, Abel Durazo, who lifted the boots while picking up drums of toxic waste at a naval station, took them to a fence in Tijuana, then pretended their truck was stolen while they ate lunch. The truck, however, gets sold to a Mexican pottery maker, who repaints uses it to deliver pots to San Diego. During all this, the waste drums still on the truck spill horrible Guthion over two kids, killing one of them. In their investigation, the three San Diego law folk wind up in weirdest Tijuana for some surreal surveillance duty--and have a punchy pair of drunk scenes that show Wambaugh at his cleverest in the sexy, gin-soaked Nick & Nora Department. Smart, crunchy dialogue--too topical, yes, but for now quite witty enough. (First printing of 300,000) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. No one portrays crime and cops with the outrageous humor and vibrant color of Joseph Wambaugh. Now, in a timely new novel, the bestselling author sends an unforgettable trio on a mission to make sense of a seemingly irrational conspiracy involving deadly toxic waste and a theft of U.S. Navy goods. A master of the skewering one-liner, and at that awkward age between mid-life crisis and catastrophe, San Diego police detective Finbar Brendan Finnegan is also an aspiring actor whose agent can't even get him an audition for a cheesy TV series. And the thrice-divorced, cynical police veteran thinks he's seen it all until he faces a killer more deadly than any psychopath: a fifty-five-gallon drum of deadly chemicals. That's what two disgruntled truckers are hauling for a toxic waste disposal company owned by yacht club playboy Jules Temple, an amoral practitioner of extortion, forgery, and much more. With their boss's entrepreneurial spirit, the two haulers decide to steal two thousand pairs of shoes from the U.S. Navy to sell on the Mexican black market, but once they cross south of the border their impulsive scheme goes haywire and results in horror and death. Sorting out various suspects, as well as EPA documents required for toxic chemical shipments, Fin joins forces with a pair of extraordinary female investigators. Nell Salter, an environmental crimes cop from the District Attorney's Office, is a fortyish beauty whose nose was broken by the only man she ever married, a mistake she'll not make again, or so she vows to even more unlucky-in-love Fin Finnegan, who hasn't married anybody since he's "matured." Then there's U.S. Navy investigator Bobbie Ann Doggett of Kenosha, Wisconsin, nicknamed "Bad Dog" by her navy colleagues. This Bad Dog is a vivacious twenty-eight-year-old who falls in puppy love with Detective Fin Finnegan, that older gentleman of the Clinton-Gore generation. Finnegan is equally smitten by the young sailor, Much to the disgust of Nell Salter, who calls him a "Peter Pan policeman." Sparks, fur and insults fly when this unique trio of investigators sets out to make sense of twisted schemes and murderous intentions involving environmental crime and U.S. Navy property, while disturbing personal feelings keep getting in the way. From millionaires' yachts in San Diego harbor to biker bars teeming with violence; from the machinations of evil and greed in the toxic waste business to the exotic killing streets of Tijuana, Finnegans' Week uncoils in an electrifying and unexpected finale. This is Joseph Wambaugh at his rousing best! Read more