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Summary
Summary
They call their sergeant the Oracle. Hes a seasoned LAPD veteran who keeps a close watch over his squad from his understaffed office at Hollywood Station. They are: Budgie Polk, a 27-year-old firecracker whos begrudgingly teamed with Fausto Gamboa, the oldest, tetchiest patrol officer. Andi McCrea, a single mom who spends her days studying at the local community college. Wesley Drubb, a USC drop-out who joined the force to see some action. Flotsam and Jetsam, two aptly named surfer boys who pine after the petitebut intrepidMeg Takara. And Hank Driscoll, the one who never shuts up. Together they spend their days and nights in the citys underbelly, where a string of seemingly unrelated events lures the cops of Hollywood Station to their most startling case yet: Russians, diamonds, counterfeiting, grenadesa reminder that nothings too horrific or twisted for Los Angeles. Here, its business as usual. For the first time in 20 years, Wambaugh revisits the kind of story he tells bestlife in the LAPD. Not only have his fans been waiting for this comeback, but readers of the new generation of police writing will have great interest in this book.
Author Notes
Writer Joseph Wambaugh was born in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 22, 1937. He joined the Marines right out of high school, but later earned both a B. A. and M. A. from California State College in Los Angeles.
He worked for the Los Angeles Police Department from 1960 to 1974.
His first novel was The New Centurions (1971) and several subsequent novels have been award winners. The Onion Field won an Edgar Award (1984), and Lines and Shadows won the Rodolfo Walsh Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers (1989). He has worked creatively on several film and television projects, including Police Story, The Black Marble, The Choirboys and The Blue Knight.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Wambaugh's outstanding new novel, his first in a decade, is not only a return to form but a return to his LAPD roots. Times have sure changed since the 1970s, the setting for some of Wambaugh's best earlier works such as The New Centurions and The Onion Field. Grossly understaffed, the officers of Hollywood Station find themselves writing bogus field interviews with nonexistent white suspects in minority neighborhoods to avoid allegations of racial profiling. Crystal meth rules the streets, and crackheads and glass freaks dressed in costume (Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Darth Vader, Elmo) work the tourist strip, bumming money for their next fix. With an impressive array of police characters, from surfer dude partners "Flotsam" and "Jetsam" to aspiring actor "Hollywood" Nate Weiss and single mother Budgie Polk, Wambaugh creates a realistic microcosm of the modern-day LAPD. Today's crop of crime writers, including Michael Connelly and George Pelecanos, obviously owe a debt to Wambaugh. The master proves that he can still deliver. 5-city author tour. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Wambaugh's pleasing new police procedural (Floaters, 1996, etc.) is a series of comic vignettes featuring a particularly idiosyncratic and beleaguered division of the LAPD--the Hollywood Station. The Hollywood beat constitutes plenty of drug-addled nuts, panhandlers, erratic, unpredictable rich people and murderous elements of gangs and the Russian mafia. Covering it all in style is the jolly, motley mix of rookies and veterans that make up LAPD's Hollywood, taking their orders from the Oracle, a kindly old sarge who has a genius for coupling partners on patrol. There are the two youngish surfer types, nicknamed Flotsam and Jetsam, whose funny, natural, shoot-the-shit dialogue opens the novel. There's Vietnam vet and senior patrol officer Fausto Gamboa, who remembers fondly the days before the force was beaten by civil lawsuits, and when women didn't routinely work patrol assignments, and his 27-year-old partner, Officer Budgie Polk, just returned from maternity leave and regularly using her breast pump. There's Japanese-American female officer Mag Takara, athletic, diminutive and fearless, paired with extra-tall, black officer Benny Brewster; during a jewelry-store robbery, Mag picks up a grenade and tosses it aside--before they learn it's a fake. And there's Hollywood Nate Weiss, so-called because of his work as a cinematic extra, paired with rookie Wesley Drubb, son of real-estate developers, bored with his pampered life and eager to experience something real. Meanwhile, the petty criminals move in, including local crystal-meth dope, mailbox thief and two-bit counterfeiter Farley Ramsdale and his dimwitted girlfriend, Olive Oly; and jewelry thief Cosmo Betrossian, who tries to pawn stolen diamonds off on the Russian owner of the hot-spot The Gulag. Terrific characterization makes up for the sparseness of plot. Former LAPD detective Wambaugh returns to his roots for a hilarious review of today's police force. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Wambaugh, awarded the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 2004, returns to the crazed world of the LAPD for the first time since his 1983 novel, The Delta Star. It is a triumphant return. Not only does Wambaugh give readers his usual feast of black humor, as well as deliver another cast of edgy LAPD cops and wacko denizens of the street, but he also portrays how life for L.A. cops has changed in the last 20 years. The novel is both a celebration of street cops and an elegy for the old LAPD, now hobbled by post-Rodney King federal receivership, Draconian PC codes, oversight armies, and severe manpower and equipment shortages (Michael Connelly covers some of this same ground). The setting, Hollywood Station, also serves as a symbol for the collision of cops and criminals. For example, the stars on the Walk of Fame in front of Graumann's Chinese Theater are overrun by costumed cartoon characters who are actually addicts and whores; the stars in front of Hollywood Station are modeled after the stars on the Walk of Fame, but these stars contain the names of seven officers from Hollywood Station, all killed in the line of duty. The plot careens between cops and criminals, as seemingly random acts of desperation by a group of meth burnouts tie into a Russian criminal mastermind's scheme. High-voltage suspense drives the tale, and as always, Wambaugh's characters, language, and war stories exude authenticity. Terrific. --Connie Fletcher Copyright 2006 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Thirty-five years after the debut of The New Centurions, the grand master of cop fiction is back with another inside look at life in the Los Angeles Police Department. But whereas Wambaugh used the 1965 Watts riots as the backdrop to Centurions, here he chooses post-Rodney King Los Angeles to present a new set of challenges to today's Los Angeles cops. Handcuffed by a paranoid, stifling bureaucracy, Wambaugh's police characters are deeply flawed but intensely devoted to protect and serve the citizens of America's second-largest city. Holding the troops of Hollywood Station together is the Oracle, a sergeant who has been on the force for almost 50 years. Wambaugh removes the layers from the street-tough cops and exposes their unique blend of bravado and fallibility, but he has proven to be equally adept at examining the psyche of tweakers, scammers, pimps, and murderers. The realities of police work aren't glamorous, even in a precinct straddled by the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It's been more than 20 years since Wambaugh's last LAPD novel; let's hope the next one doesn't take as long. Recommended for all fiction collections. Ken Bolton, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.