The Black Marble was published by Delacorte Press in 1978, and it surprised everyone — including Wambaugh’s publishers, who expected another dark police novel. Instead, he wrote a romantic comedy: the story of Sergeant Andrei Valnikov (a Russian-American detective falling apart from alcoholism and grief) and Sergeant Natalie Zimmerman (a brash, impatient detective who wants a transfer away from him), assigned together to investigate the kidnapping of a prize-winning show dog.
The dog show world — competitive, obsessive, absurdly high-stakes to its participants — provides the novel’s comic backdrop, and the dognapping plot (executed by a desperate kennel owner in debt to loan sharks) generates genuine suspense. But the novel’s heart is the love story: Valnikov’s gentle madness (he weeps at Rachmaninoff, forgets where he parks, treats suspects with bewildering kindness) gradually penetrating Natalie’s defenses, and Natalie’s competence providing the stability that Valnikov needs to survive.
Wambaugh’s thesis remains consistent with his darker work: police officers are psychologically damaged by their work, and the department offers no support. But here, the possibility of human connection — love, specifically — offers an alternative to the self-destruction that consumed the characters of The Choirboys. It is Wambaugh’s most hopeful book, and its hopefulness is hard-won rather than sentimental.
Collecting The Black Marble
First edition (Delacorte Press, New York, 1978): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $15–$35
- Signed first edition: $30–$70
- Without jacket: $5–$10