Customer Reviews

Lines And Shadows

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm both in awe and suspicious of this book. It purports to tell the true-life story of a group of undercover police officers, most of Mexican descent, who work steathily to entice robbers preying on the heavy illegal alien traffic flowing into San Diego County from Baja California into attacking them, then turning the tables on their would-be victimizers.

I'm in awe because it reads like fiction, with deep insights into the professional and personal lives of each of the policemen who are part of the BARF (Border Alien Robbery Force) team. We find out how they spend their off-hours, drinking and cheating on their wives with the sort of abandon of the cheerfully doomed. We discover how much they come to dislike one another, and particularly their leader, a hotshot in disco chains named Manny Lopez. The action sequences are riveting, and you get a real flavor for the desolate highlands these officers probe, and the desperate characters, both deadly and vulnerable, that they come across.

But it reads too much like fiction. These guys either opened up to Wambaugh to a degree few ever do, not even to a very good, empathetic writer who asks all the right questions, or else the writer went the New Journalism route and extrapolated a lot of the inner monologues each of these officers have from time to time. I wonder about the former approach (cops are notoriously taciturn, even with each other or someone like Wambaugh who's obviously skilled at drawing them out) and question the validity of the latter, if used.

Despite the numerous offenses against man, society, and God cataloged here, Wambaugh apparently didn't leave these guys so much out to dry that they got angry. It wouldn't be a good idea angering these guys, but how did he manage it, given the story we have here? I just wish there was some Author's Note explaining the access issue. All we have is the firm statement at the outset "This Is A True Story." Yes, sure, but are these the real characters? Did he do one of those magazine-writer tricks of folding in multiple characters to create fictional hybrids? Did he use pseudonyms? I'd love to know.

The dialogue is brilliant, the writerly asides masterful and witty, and a crisp narrative pulls you through quickly while asking the question of when a good impulse (protecting aliens who are being savaged by gangsters while trying to illegally enter your country) become a really bad practice. By the final third of the book, the cops are strung-out adrenaline junkies probing into Mexican territory and looking for conflict, not the sort of characters you want representing your country in a sensitive border region.

Was this really what they were like? And what happened to them after the book was published in 1984? I'd love to know.

because it DOESN'T read like fiction; it's a true story with Wambaugh applying his direct understanding of how cops behave & what happens when they act out because of stress that returns night after night & can't be eased. There's the usual Wambaugh mix of booze, women, blurs between right & law. As usual, there's no insight or development for female characters, who are cardboard cutouts. But this time, instead of playing with character & language, as in other books, he projects his insights into those he depicts, without modifying their character. It's docudrama, despite its gunslinger theme, like Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood," a form Wambaugh is good at, maybe because it relieves him of tense necessity of creating a plot. Oddly, this book isn't cynical, even when describing disappointed moral objectives; but it does prove what Aristotle said, "We become what we do repeatingly." A police department that sends men to work in Hell shouldn't be surprised if they turn into devils.

I have read this book over and over again. It combines drama, humor, and enough social commentary that you won't feel it is frivolous. Based on fact, it is a great read. Presently, I am trying to follow up on what happened to the "characters" after the book ended. Can't go wrong with this book.

Sabes que, Wambaugh at his best!

The philosophical setting of this book is littered with "ifs." If the United States government would protect the US from invaders, as it is charged to do, this book never would have been written. If other nations were governed by constitutions conceptually similar to that of the United States, establishing freedom and individual rights everywhere -- such that people would not feel it necessary to flee their home governments, and seek freedom in the United States -- this book never would have come into being. If, if, if.

This excellent book is a well-written tragedy about good law enforcement people who took the initiative to overlook one crime (illegal immigration) and proactively fight other crimes -- robbery, assault, battery etc. The story is compelling and riveting. It is good guys versus bad guys.

Unfortunately, both sides lost.

This book was well researched, written and expressive. Having had worked that area many years ago as a US Border Patrolman myself, the story presented was true to life and fact written and rang true with me. The actuality of what goes on at and between the US borders and Mexico would be really unbelievable to many people who have never been there. It's a whole other world. Mr. Wambaugh has written this story beautifully from all aspects. This story is well worth the reading time spent, which goes by pretty fast once you get started!

I can tell you first hand that the accounts from this book are very true. This the best book I've ever read about the U.S. Border Patrol. In the security of darkness Mexican border bandits committed unspeakable atrocities against their very own people. That all changed when the Border Patrol and San Diego Police's elite bandit team went 10-8, becoming a mexican bandit's worst nightmare!

Years ago I read The Onion Field and that book remains my favorite nonfiction piece by Wambaugh. Lines and Shadows was well-written, but whereas The Onion Field gave me the feeling that each scene was necessary to understanding the big picture, this book felt a bit choppy at times. I feel certain that is due to the nature of the two stories, this one focusing on a small cadre of cops and the changes that they go through as the stress of their work along the border takes its toll.

Learning about the impact of the stress on the cops was great, but the stress was taking its toll early on. We see how the cops were wallowing in their stress-induced symptoms for most of the time that they were on the task force rather than changing slowly over time. Since it is not a novel, that is not really a criticism; he most likely portrayed the situation accurately. Yet it still gave me a feeling that some scenes did not link together to paint a portrait and that each was necessary. One night in the canyons was often very similar to another night as was the aftermath with alcohol, women, and machismo behavior.

At some 380 pages, perhaps a bit of editing would have been wise; certainly his description of what people would confess to when interrogated by the Tijuana Police should have been trimmed a bit. Lest I seem unduly critical, I really did enjoy this book and learned a great deal from it.

i bought this book for a college course i was taking, i enjoyed every word of it, definitely one of the best books i've read so far in my life.

I recently purchased the book "Lines and Shadows" from Amazon.com because of a former co-worker of mine had some questions about one of the officers listed in the book whom we worked with over the years. Wambaugh's writings well document the officers profiles and the frustration of those who take on the task of protecting and helping those in need. The book shows what those life and death situations cause officers to do under highly adrenaline charged incident. Unfortunately the public has yet to understand these things.

I read long ago a description of law enforcement, which I embrace because it has meaning. In part it describes law enforcement as not a "Job" but a "Calling." For no matter adversities we do the work even with the pressures, frustrations, or criticism of police administration, society or the judicial system we forge ahead....we are the fists of society doing the work society is afraid to do, has not the stomach for, nor the skills.

In my opinion, this is the best book of the many of Wambaugh's that I have read. Sure, I have seen the comments that question the accuracy of his statement that this is a true story. Perhaps he has taken some liberties with the truth in order to make this book readable and entertaining, I simply don't know. What I do know is that it addresses the problem of the victimization of illegals crossing the US-Mexico border in a compellingly sensitive and yet entertaining way. In doing so it makes a worthwhile contribution to understanding the plight of these hapless human beings.