Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Hollywood Crows-Joseph Wambaugh

Hollywood Crows
Joseph Wambaugh
Little Brown, Apr 2008, $26.99
ISBN: 9780316025287

LAPD cops Nathan “Hollywood Nate” Weiss and Bix Ramstead are assigned as the newest “Crows” to the department’s Community Relations Office. Weiss stops beautiful Margot Aziz, who ran a stop sign without slowing down. Although he tries to remain impartial officer, she hooks his libido as she explains she is in the throes of an ugly divorce from Ali.

Margot seeks to trump her spouse, who owns a nightclub that is allowed to operate freely because of his financial donations to various police activities. Meanwhile Margot believes she has a cop in her corner in the gullible Hollywood Nate and his naive partner Bix. Her plan is simple use these morons to kill her husband in order to gain his wealth; but she is unaware of a just as lethal counter operation.

The suspense subplot as described above offers no surprises as it goes just the way the audience expects. Thus the interest in HOLLYWOOD CROWS lies with the various police officers trying to do their job under federal monitoring of LAPD. The cops seem genuine with their frustrations and wary of the various social experiments to help the force overcome the scandal that led to oversight. Fans of Joseph Wambaugh will enjoy the latest police procedural at the HOLLYWOOD STATION in spite of the prime suspense element is weak.

Harriet Klausner

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