The Glitter Dome

By: Joseph Wambaugh

Narrated by: Adam Verner

Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

In his finest, most compelling blend of wild humor and powerful drama, Joseph Wambaugh leads us into the Hollywood scene to demonstrate the effects of that heady, amoral world on four sets of police partners enmeshed in the glamour and the grime, the hustle and the horror. They live and work in a dizzying mix of moguls and starlets, elaborate parties, outrageous and sordid actions; a place where sex and drugs are open and the big deals are undercover.

A visit to The Glitter Dome - their after-hours watering hole, where the lights are kaleidoscopic and groupies plentiful - is the only way to come down from the excitement and fear of the day.

Suddenly, their grim world of vice, drugs, and child abuse is interrupted by the murder of a major studio’s president. And two veteran homicide detectives discover the alarming extent to which they, too, have been seduced by Hollywood.

Once again, in the boisterous and riveting tradition of The Choirboys, Joseph Wambaugh creates a group of unexpected and unforgettable characters who inhabit the shadow world he knows so well, where the line between cop and criminal is destroyed.

©1981 Original material, Joseph Wambaugh. Recorded by arrangement with Mysterious Press, LLC. (P)2011 HighBridge Company

Wambaugh is GREAT- Narrator, Not So Much

Joseph Wambaugh is THE master of the LAPD novel and has been since the 70's with New Centurions. The Glitter Dome has a great cast of characters, but the narrator made them all sound like whiny dinks. The voice characterizations are lame to non existent and the narrator mispronounced simple words like "valet" and names like "Robles". Great story, terrible reader.

The REAL Policemans police procedural

What did you love best about The Glitter Dome?

If you give Wambaugh a chance, you realize you are in the midst of as

What did you like best about this story?

Storytelling

Have you listened to any of Adam Verner’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Great stroy telling

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Policeman findig the bad guys

Not bad

Probably the least favorite of Wambaugh's works so far but it was still entertaining. I had a hard time getting used to the narrator, Adam Verner.

Great Wambaugh

I'm only a third through the audio and having a hard time going further. I love the story and characters but i simply cannot tolerate the narrator! I have the book so i think I'll just read read this one.
I would recommend the book but i strongly advise steering clear of this narrator!

Love Joseph Wambaugh… But…

.... fair warning, this one's even darker than the other two I have enjoyed… "The choirboys" and "Finnegan's week"… And I mean very dark. Having been involved in the criminal justice system for almost 40 years, I'm inclined to say, it's almost disturbing. But that's no reason not to dive in. The usual, bleak humor, captivating characters, and surrounding mystery are in full effect.

great sleazy fun

darkly comic and sleaze-a-riffic, wambaugh really delivers the goods with this one. enjoyed it from start to finish

Hollywood Hell

My problem is I like Joseph Wambaugh's Hollywood series and fell for what the publisher says about this book. It's a lie.

Look not here for the likes of Hollywood Nate, Flotsam, Jetsam, or the Oracle. Unlike most of Wambaugh's other LAPD stories, there is no comic relief, not a hint of honor, and no endearing characters. Most are depressed, played out, addicted, divorced, degraded, case-hardened men (sorry, no women cops) that look forward to nothing so much as their own suicides. I began to wish they'd offed themselves before Wambaugh had sat down to write.

This book is a tiresome reiteration of all the forms of immorality and crime that isolated, desperate, and ungodly people can manifest. Private problems of the most intimate types, including how to off yourself successfully with a gun, are described in minute detail. Continued isolation, booze, and loose women are offered again and again as the hoped for, but ever unsuccessful, redemption.

Borrrrrrring. And depressing, if you can get through it, which I couldn't.

In spite of these drawbacks, the narrator carries it well, No complaints about him.