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Best-selling author Joseph Wambaugh takes his readers inside the Hollywood station of the Los Angeles Police Department for his latest novel, HOLLYWOOD CROWS. 'Crows' are Community Relations Officers, those police assigned to quality of life issues, such as noise and parking problems, who are considered by normal LAPD cops to be riding the easy train to retirement. When two of those Crows, Hollywood Nate and Bix Rumstead, get entangled with a soon-to-be-divorced blonde bombshell up in the Hills, they look at it as another perk of the job. However, this bombshell, one Margot Aziz, is no harmless socialite; she’s a woman with a plan to get rid of her soon-to-be former husband, and she ensnares the LAPD to assist her in the scheme. Her husband, Ali, runs a local strip club, the Leopard Lounge, the setting for all sorts of seedy business deals and dealers. Ali, too, is unhappy with the financial setbacks of the impending divorce, but more than that, he wants sole custody of his only son whom he believes will be taken away by Margot. Life would be so much easier for Ali if only Margot was out of the picture altogether. While the outcome of this divorce scenario may be a bit predictable, it is the police setting and side events that Wambaugh presents so creatively that make the book so quirky and enjoyable. The cops have interesting personalities, from living-to-surf to acting aspirations to misfit romance on the beat. The criminals, of course, are even more eccentric, and many of the police calls demonstrate Wambaugh’s humor at its finest. Readers will enjoy the jargon and the police situations, and life among the LAPD where Hollywood Station proves that no day is dull in Hollywood. Wambaugh is a seasoned writer of police situations, and this book is sure to entertain anyone with even a passing interest in what a day on the beat is like in Hollywood, where nothing can surprise the veteran police force. He also incorporates real situations, such as federal monitoring and the police suicide rate, into his plot effortlessly. Best of all, it is Wambaugh’s jaded eye for the police and criminals that makes his writing so deliciously funny that can only leave readers wishing for more.
Reviewed by Christine Zibas, February 2008
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