The Secrets of Harry Bright

Rating:
Summary: How did this book get published?
Review: I finished this book last night and went, this afternoon, to AMAZON to check the reader reviews. I am surprised that people liked this book. The plot is silly, goes nowhere, and started from nowhere. Several of the scenes and characters are not even tangentially related to the story. I've never read any other of his books. I'm sure others have to be better or else this one would not have been published.

Rating:
Summary: How did this book get published?
Review: I finished this book last night and went, this afternoon, to AMAZON to check the reader reviews. I am surprised that people liked this book. The plot is silly, goes nowhere, and started from nowhere. Several of the scenes and characters are not even tangentially related to the story. I've never read any other of his books. I'm sure others have to be better or else this one would not have been published.

Rating:
Summary: One Of Waumbaugh's Best
Review: I first read this about this book in a feature article in Los Angles Magazine in 1984. I later read this book while spending the weekend at the Marriott Rancho Las Plamas Resort in Rancho, Mirage, Ca. near where this book takes place.

The book focuses on a San Diego Police Officer who looses his son in the PSA jet crash in San Diego and escapes to a desrt town to escape San Diego and to still be near his ex wife who lives in Rancho Mirage in an exclusive Country Club.

The Main Character of this novel "Black Sid" gets an all expense paid vaction to Palm Springs to investigate a murder of a Millionares son. Black Sid like Harry Bright and the millionare all have lost their son.

The plot is very captivating and well worth the reading. Just be careful, it may inspire you enough to go to the Coachella Valley area and fall in love with the desert and buy a home in Rancho Mirage like I did!

Rating:
Summary: An Entertaining But Haunting Read.
Review: I have not read much fiction in my lifetime. I'm just learning how, these days. Joseph Wambaugh is giving me an appreciation of reading fiction for pure joy. I enjoyed this book. Laughed out loud many times too. The ending left me deeply moved. If you like who-dunnits, you will enjoy this one. What prompted me to read something of Wambaugh's was "Echoes In The Darkness," which I read many years ago. I thought it was a good read also. I have some personal interest and knowledge of that book's subject.

Rating:
Summary: Wambaugh does it again.
Review: I like all of Wambaugh's books, but this one was really moving. It started out quite humorous but the ending was vey dramatic and moving. Like Fugitive Nights,Wambaugh's descriptions of the desert areas around Palm Springs conveys his love of nature and makes you want to visit. Even though I live in San Diego, I do not know and unfortunately have never met Wambaugh

Rating:
Summary: One of his Best
Review: I've read all of Wambaugh's books and impatiently wait for each new one. "The Secrets Of Harry Bright" is probably the least known of his books, but it's the one that keeps haunting me. The "secrets" that are finally revealed in a stunning conclusion are indeed deeply moving and, years later, still gnaw at me.

Rating:
Summary: Unforgetable
Review: I've read all of Wambaugh's books and impatiently wait for each new one. "The Secrets Of Harry Bright" is probably the least known of his books, but it's the one that keeps haunting me. The "secrets" that are finally revealed in a stunning conclusion are indeed deeply moving and, years later, still gnaw at me.

Rating:
Summary: One of his Best
Review: I've read ALL of Wambaugh's books, and this is one of his best works. The characters are well developed, they are so real and vivid. As usual, he includes just the right fine character details, you end up knowing the players so well that you feel like you've known them all your life. And I am sure there is nobody (that did't cheat and read the end first) that could have ever guessed how this story plays out.

Rating:
Summary: Good, laugh-out loud, read.
Review: Wambaugh again combines a real mystery plot with some truly humorous anecdotes pulled right from real-life police work. Having been familiar with this line of work, and the locale in which this book is set, I found it a good read - and one that made me laugh out loud at times. Maybe we all have our "Secret..." as does Harry Bright.

Rating:
Summary: The Usual
Review: Wambaugh formula--middle-aged cops who eat & drink too much, who've seen too much & lost too much, and are so burned out that they're looking for another life, if they're lucky enough to reach retirement. And a mystery to be solved, from the thinnest of clues, with a bent ending & no resolution. And all wrapped in stories cops tell each other--with great dialogue, well developed male characters, and one-dimensional females. Ah, the life, the life! Starting each of the early chapters off with point-of-view that shifts with each character was irksome to me, but, otherwise, a good read, overlong for its novella content. Here's its irony: Wambaugh is trapped in the world that his characters are trying to escape, even as he writes about it. Experience makes cynics of us all, and cops get cynical fast, including those who write about what they learned.