The Onion Field [Paperback]

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A fascinating account of a double tragedy: one physical, the other psychological.”—Truman Capote

This is the frighteningly true story of two young cops and two young robbers whose separate destinies fatally cross one March night in a bizarre execution in a deserted Los Angeles field.

“A complex story of tragic proportions . . . more ambitious than In Cold Blood and equally compelling!”—The New York Times

“Once the action begins it is difficult to put the book down. . . . Wambaugh’s compelling account of this true story is destined for the bestseller lists.”—Library Journal
“A complex story of tragic proportions . . . more ambitious than In Cold Blood and equally compelling!”—The New York Times

“A fascinating account of a double tragedy: one physical, the other psychological.”—Truman CapoteJoseph Wambaugh is the hard-hitting best-selling writer who conveys the passionate immediacy of a special world. A master storyteller…authenticity oozes from his books.Chapter One


The night in the onion field was a Saturday night. Saturday meant impossible traffic in Hollywood so felony car officers did a good deal of their best work on side streets off Hollywood and Sunset boulevards. On those side streets, revelers' cars were clouted or stolen. F-cars also cruised the more remote commercial areas, away from intersections where traffic snarled, and the streets undulated with out-of-towners, roaming groups of juveniles, fruit hustlers, desl£