Hollywood Station
by Joseph Wambaugh
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joseph WambaughEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-10-01
ISBN: 0446401242
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Vision
Book Reviews of Hollywood Station
Book Review: No rust here....
Summary: 5 Stars
When an author takes a long break from writing, you are never quite sure what you're going to get when he finally comes out with another book. There's always the fear that his talents have gotten rusty, or even worse, faded away completely. Fortunately for fans of Joseph Wambaugh, his return to fiction writing after around a decade shows no decay in skills. In fact, Hollywood Station is Wambaugh at his best.
As is common in many of his books, Hollywood Station has only a superficial plot. This is more a character-based novel, in particular, the policemen and policewomen who work out of Hollywood Station. This is an area with its own unique feel due to the weird people it attracts, primarily due to the movie and television business. There isn't the dangerous gang presence of the inner city or the laid back feeling of the suburbs, but something rather different.
The cops who patrol Hollywood are mostly known by their nicknames. There are the partners Flotsam and Jetsam who surf by day and enforce the law by night. There is Budgie, a policewoman just back from maternity leave and her partner, the curmudgeonly Fausto. Hollywood Nate likes doing extra work, Andi McCrea is pursuing a college degree while worrying about her son in Iraq, and there are others. There is not really a main character, but there is a central one: the sergeant known as the Oracle who, nearly fifty years on the job, has the respect of all his peers.
The plot - which sometimes seem almost incidental as we follow the minor adventures of various cops and crooks - involves a diamond robbery by Cosmo Betrossian and his girlfriend Ilya. The two are motivated by their success to try an even bigger score, an armored car heist that doesn't go completely as planned. Furthermore, they have to deal with two meth addicts, Farley and Olive, who are intent on blackmailing Cosmo with their knowledge of the diamond theft.
The cops in this story are mostly honest and reasonably competent, but they often seem demoralized by the rules they are forced to abide by. In their view, a few bad apples have tarnished all of them, so now they have to deal with consent decrees, overly zealous and politically correct politicians and all sorts of petty bureaucracy.
As with many police procedurals, we only really see the cops while they are on the job; their private lives (and sometimes their real names) are only gleaned gradually from the tales of their work. Wambaugh shows no rust with this book, writing a novel that is thoroughly entertaining with a good amount of humor. Even if you've never been exposed to Wambaugh before, this will be a great read.
Summary of Hollywood Station
A #1 New York Times bestselling author, Joseph Wambaugh invented the modern police procedural thriller. Now in his long-awaited return to the LAPD, he deploys his bone-deep understanding of cops' lives--and a lethal sense of humor--in a stunning new novel.For a cop, a night on the job means killing time and trying not to get killed. If you're in Hollywood Division, it also means dealing with some of the most desperate criminals anywhere. Now the violent robbery of a
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