Joseph Wambaugh, who wrote the gripping, true-crime bestseller "The Onion Field" and numerous gritty but darkly humorous novels about day-to-day police work drawn from his own experiences as a Los Angeles police officer,

Joseph Wambaugh, the former LAPD officer who brought realism to the "Police Story" TV series and books like "The Onion Field," died Friday.

He wrote 'The Onion Field,' 'The New Centurions' and 'The Blue Knight' and created the realistic anthology series 'Police Story.'

In novels like “The Glitter Dome” and nonfiction works like “The Onion Field,” he took a harsh, unglamorous look at the realities of law enforcement.