HOLLYWOOD CROWS
Joseph Wambaugh
Little, Brown and Company
Crime Fiction
ISBN: 9780316025287

• Read an Excerpt
• Author Talk –– March 28, 2008

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, Bix Ramstead, represents the contrast between modern police officers and those who served in a different era, when police work was the job of white males. Throughout the novel, audiences are reminded of the difference between the modern police department and police work exemplified by Jack Webb in “Dragnet.” As Wambaugh details the daily experiences of the contemporary officer, he lets readers decide if society has benefited from the modernization of its law enforcement community.

HOLLYWOOD CROWS reinforces a point that police officers in both fiction and real life know all too well --- domestic quarrels can be the most dangerous aspect of police work. The ongoing divorce of strip club operator Ali Aziz and his beautiful wife Margot will entrap and ensnare several in devious criminal activity. Many years ago a wise judge once told me that he preferred hearing criminal trials to divorce matters because “you meet a better class of people in criminal cases.” That observation is reflected in the distasteful details of the domestic battle between Ali and Margot. The couple has gone to war over custody of their son, and both combatants will do just about anything to win that struggle. Margot will use beauty, sexuality and her ability to manipulate men, while Ali will turn to his many connections with the criminal element of Los Angeles.

While domestic strife is the major storyline in HOLLYWOOD CROWS, Wambaugh has numerous additional plot threads throughout the novel. Some center on the personal lives of the officers --- including that of Nathan “Hollywood Nate” Weiss --- and their interaction with a community that has come to Los Angeles from every corner of the world. Others view the ongoing struggle of many members of an urban society to simply exist in a frantic and often unsympathetic social atmosphere. How the new multicultural police force interacts with those citizens in disputes that run from minor quarrels to major crimes serves as a backdrop of the book.

Reading Joseph Wambaugh is a joy. His books are humorous, even down to the unique and whimsical names he employs. But beneath the surface is the unmistakable fact that the experienced police officer still has important insights and beliefs about law enforcement and how it can function more effectively in our society. HOLLYWOOD CROWS is a wonderful novel written by a thoughtful policeman who still cares about that trade as well as the writing profession, which has made him one of America’s finest police novelists.

    --- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman

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