Hollywood Crows

If you didn't know it was Joseph Wambaugh, you'd swear that Carl Hiaasen took a vacation in LA, hung out with the LAPD, and wrote this cynically funny tale of cops and those they protect, and especially those who they are protected from. But Hiaasen could never tell a police story with Wambaugh's authority, and only an ex-cop could render it with Wambaugh's sincere passion for the men and women in blue. Like it's predecessor, "Hollywood Station", "Crows" (short for LAPD's "Community Relations Office") is told through a series of Hill Street Blues-style vignettes loosely wrapped around a central plot. In this outing, The Leopard Lounge, a Sunset Boulevard strip joint, it's oily owner, Ali Aziz, and his impossibly gorgeous soon-to-be ex-wife Margot combine to form the story's deliciously sleazy and very Hiaasen-like core of deceit, blackmail, sex and murder. Ali's problem is that Margot has custody of his beloved five-year old son and half the family fortune, and he'd prefer to see Margot as not only an ex-wife, but also an ex-person. Not that Ali has any corner on the duplicity market: the scheming Margot plumbs new depths of greed and corruption in pursuit of her wanton desires. It is Wambaugh's knack for character development and an easy, natural dialog that takes "Crows" above the pack and again secures the author's well deserved accolades for capturing life-inside-the-precinct. Back from "Hollywood Station" are Flotsam and Jetsam, the surfing sleuths whose SoCal beach banter nearly requires a translator, and will find you chuckling out loud. "Hollywood" Nate Weiss is still flashing his SAG card and looking for the big break, and hottie cops Ronnie Sinclair and Cat Song are as beautiful - and untouchable - as ever - and a new, predictably insufferable and clueless precinct house sergeant to replace the legendary "Oracle" of "Hollywood Station." But this is not all fun and games - Wambaugh's distaste for the bureaucracy of the post-Rodney King federal consent decree is palpable and justified, as the restrictions placed on the department create mountains of work but little additional protection for LA's citizenry. And while Wambaugh's dark and cynical humor dominates, the story takes an unexpected but well executed turn to poignancy by the end, proving that in LA there are few winners and even less redemption. In summary, well-paced and brilliantly crafted - a novel that captures LA life on the streets, at the same time highly entertaining and deeply sobering. A highly recommended read.

As a big fan anyway, this book delivers the same entertaimment as every other book he wrote.

Joseph Wambaugh literally invented this kind of novel--the daily lives of LAPD police--on patrol in the streets as well as in their personal lives, through use of anecdotes, situations and quips. This is the 13th novel of the type since the first--The New Centurions--was introduced 14 years ago. The story is about a crime, but more important, about the men and women of Hollywood South, cops like the two surfer cops--Flotsam and Jetsam-- and Nate Weiss, Cat Song, Ronnie Sinclair and Bic Ramstead. The plot describes the duties and foibles of the Community Relations Officers--the Crows--in their efforts to assuage the fears or complaints of citizens, such as illegal parking in an apartment house lot across from an upscale strip joint or the noise from a house whose front lawn is strewn with stolen supermarket shopping carts. The strip club is owned by Ali Azis, who is going through a bad divorce suit with his wife, Margot. Each wishes the other dead (for different reasons). Margot's plot involve a couple of the cops, which leads to more complications, as she continually makes complaints about her husband's "threats" to establish a record. It is Wambaugh at his best, and should be read. Highly recommended.

Lest readers think that Joseph Wambaugh has gone ornithologist on them, Hollywood Crows are not winged creatures flying through the fabled entertainment community of Los Angeles. Crows is an acronym for "community relations officers" of the Los Angeles Police Department, ombudsmen and liaisons in the community. Given its sordid history, no other law enforcement agency in America needs the efforts of this group more than the LAPD. Wambaugh has chronicled the lives of police officers for the past four decades. His first book, THE NEW CENTURIONS, was both critically acclaimed and a bestseller. His early novels were published while he continued to serve as a Los Angeles police detective. The combination of successful author and working cop led to some unusual circumstances that one might expect in crazy California. "I would have guys in handcuffs asking me for autographs," he was said to have remarked. The modern police officers portrayed skillfully in novels by authors such as Michael Connelly and George Pelecanos, and on the small screen in countless variations of "Law & Order" and in HBO's critically acclaimed "The Wire," can trace their beginnings back to Wambaugh. He was one of the first writers to recognize that police officers have personal lives and often face pressure similar to most middle-class Americans. But these difficulties are often exacerbated by the fact that they confront crime and danger on the job. Wambaugh's books humanize police officers and their work with humor and grace; his popularity has changed crime fiction and given it a legitimacy that it lacked previously. HOLLYWOOD CROWS, Wambaugh's latest work of fiction, follows his traditional plot structure of introducing readers to both hard-working police officers who truly care about their job and unthinking bureaucratic officers who seem incapable of working intelligently or innovatively at any level. It is clear that Wambaugh longs for a different era in police life, when officers had more independence to perform their jobs. At the same time, however, he recognizes that many of the changes in police work are the result of lapses in judgment and professional malfeasance by police departments. Of course Wambaugh's novels would be incomplete without the other side of the law enforcement equation: the law breaker. One of the genuine endearing qualities of his wrongdoers is that they are not evil, mean geniuses plotting to destroy mankind. Instead they are generally inept crooks who often end up caught because of their own stupidity rather than through expert police work. That is the way it generally happens in the real world --- most bad guys catch themselves. If they were smart, they would have jobs with major corporations where they could steal far more than they can on the street. HOLLYWOOD CROWS introduces readers to surfer cops, appropriately nicknamed Flotsam and Jetsam, and to female officers Cat Song and Ronnie Sinclair. The obligatory hardened veteran officer, Bi

But still very enjoyable. The first reviewer of the book said Wambaugh was in "the declining years" of his work. Maybe that's true - we all grow old - but this novel, the second of the "Hollywood" series, is still better than many other crime novels by authors in fresh bloom. I don't think Wambaugh's work can be compared to other crime novelists. His "procedurals" have scarcely any decernable plots - though this one has more than most - but are instead character studies of both the high and low forms of life in Los Angeles. Cops and criminals and everyone in between. Wambaugh's work is not for everybody. It certainly would not appeal to the political correct among us. Maybe that's why I like his work so much.