Resumo de Hollywood Station

There are plenty of police procedurals in the land of fiction thrillersbut I can't think of another author who writes with such anauthoritative voice. His picture of what life is like on thepersonal-professional level for the band in blue and the criminalhustlers who keep them in business smacks of experience. His viewof Hollywood is full of crackheads, tweakers (meth-addicts), tourists,Serbo-Croatian criminals, dope pushers, whores and all the rest whopursue an illegal buck. Speaking as someone who drives thestreets he describes I have to say, "Here?! Y'never woulda'knowed it."But, it's a great yarn that suggests what could be going on under aresident's radar and beneath the headlines. Wambaugh's crew ofcopspatrol from our other side of the line, suffering under the edictsandoversight of a Police Commission. They are anything but standardissueas they apply their dedication "To Protect and To Serve."The"Oracle,"the sergeant who has been around the longest and runsthestation, assigns his officers to teams with some sensitivitytowardpersonalities, attitudes and needs. In one instance, he pairs upa ladycop to the gruffest old sexist still sporting a badge--more tohelp himthan her.The work never stops for law enforcement in thisproductive urbanareathat's so well supplied with criminals up and downthe scale oftheft and homicide. One of an officer's biggest challengesis to figureout where the connections are. Under their noses, forexample, is"tweaker" Farley Ramsdale and the girlfriend Farley callsOlive Oyl."This woman is dumb as a clump of dog hair" is how he thinksof her,but she's not too dumb to use as a decoy to avoid getting caughtnor toassist him in any one of his regular scams. One of thoseconsistsof dropping mouse traps with strings of duct tape into mailboxes inorder to fish out cash, social security numbers and whateveritems ofvalue he can trade for a supply of "glass" (crystal meth).And,once-in-a-while there's a letter of special interest, like theonedescribing a shipment of diamonds to a local jewelry store.WhenFarley later learns of the successful robbery that resulted fromthispiece of intel, he confronts Cosmo Betrossian, the Armenian,thebenefactor of it. Cosmo paid Farley a lousy 20 bucks for the letterandyou can't blame Farley --a businessman even if he is aconnivingsociopath-- for wanting to renegotiate when the informationturns intoa bonanza. Even Cosmo sees the point and, having been to hisfenceDmitri, the Russian nightclub owner of "The Gulag" and a manCosmofears, he offers Farley a $10,000 cut as soon as hereceives his payoff.Meanwhile, the consequences of the jewelry heist are onlybeginning.With all the complexity of the cop and undergroundinterraction,withits human foibles and motivations, Wambaugh's geniusis inmaintaining clarity, which he does expertly, while not allowingthenormal fumbles of reality to become the "gangs that couldn'tshootstraight." Rather, in a roundup of carefully drawn characters inaconstruct of irony and tragedy, his underworld action descends towhereit must for a sometimes edgy "sounds like the truth"representation.Nor does he go into the reverse style of being overlyslick. Choosing not to follow the path of a strong central character --thenorm of the genre -- he returns to his L.A. roots by using"anecdotes"and "cop talk" by officers of the LAPD to enrich hiscleverlyintegrated storyline with insights from experience. Afterhis13-year layoff, Wambaugh, self-exiled in Newport Beach and retired,hasnot only not lost his unique talent but has, if anything, gainedinperspective and storytelling grip.

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