Finnegan's Week Hardcover - 1993

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!