In the southermost Los Angeles district of San Pedro, one of the world's busiest harbors, an unlikely pair of lovers are unwittingly caught between the two warring sides of the law amid the investigation of a horrifying human-trafficking ring. When Dinko Babich, a young longshoreman, delivers Lita Medina, a young Mexican dancer, from the harbor to a Hollywood nightclub, their lives are forever changed as the two are caught in the crosshairs of the multitude of cops and criminals, the law-abiding and the lawless, who occupy the harbor.
Dinko and Lita cross paths with many colorful characters originally introduced in Wambaugh's acclaimed and best-selling Hollywood Station series: the surfer cops known as Flotsam and Jetsam, aspiring actor 'Hollywood Nate'Weiss, young Britney Small, along with new members of the midwatch. Humor, love, suspense, and tragedy are intertwined in the lives of the cops and residents of the Los Angeles Harbor, with the unflinching eye for detail that only a master of the form can provide.
Nocturne shows a grandmaster at the top of his craft, a craft none have mastered like Joseph Wambaugh.