Hollywood Crows: A Novel (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: community relations office, surfer cops, midwatch unit, Bix Ramstead, Gil Ponce, Leonard Stilwell (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gallows humor and the grim realities of street police work coexist uneasily in this less than stellar follow-up to Hollywood Station (2006) from MWA Grand Master Wambaugh. Nathan Weiss, known as Hollywood Nate for his acting ambitions, and his friend Bix Ramstead are now assigned to the LAPD's Community Relations Office, which handles quality-of-life issues and whose members are referred to as Crows. Weiss and Ramstead both become ensnared by a stunning femme fatale, Margot Aziz, who's in the middle of a contentious divorce. Aziz is trying to gain the upper hand over her husband, who operates a seedy nightclub but stays on the good side of law enforcement with well-timed donations to police charities. Aziz's scheming follows a fairly predictable path, and there's not much suspense about the outcome. Through the eyes of an eccentric collection of beat cops, Wambaugh gives a compelling picture of what policing is like under the federal monitor appointed to oversee the real LAPD after the Rampart corruption scandal, but characterizations are on the thin side and some readers may find the callous cruelty off-putting. (Mar. 25)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Wambaugh turns his Mars lights on perhaps the most unlikely of subjects: a Hollywood patrol division called CRO (Community Relations Office) made up of safe, contented, non-street-working cops who focus on quality-of-life issues. But, naturally, in Wambaugh’s telling, life in this coveted division—whose members are known as Crows—overruns with slapstick and social satire. The narrative veers between the Crows and the zany bunch of street cops at Hollywood Station (including surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam) who contend with the inhabitants of what they call “America’s kook capital.” Bridging the gap between the real cops and the envied, despised Crows is street cop Hollywood Nate (so called because he is forever trying to break into the movie business), who gets an assignment to the Crows and finds himself in the throes of violent lust over Margot, a socialite separated from an edgy nightclub owner. Margot has plans for Nate and his partner, pulling them into a scheme so that she can walk away from her marriage and a perfect murder. We get this plot from Nate’s and Margot’s viewpoints. We also get classic Wambaugh cop stories, culled from actual cops, delivered in inimitable style. Wambaugh’s acid take on the post–Rodney King LAPD and the resultant consent decree and rule by bureaucrats is worth reading in itself. Another terrific Wambaugh ride-along. --Connie Fletcher

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (March 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316025283
• ISBN-13: 978-0316025287
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #323,902 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not quite as good as his previous "hollywood" novel..., March 28, 2008

By	Jill Meyer (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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But still very enjoyable. The first reviewer of the book said Wambaugh was in "the declining years" of his work. Maybe that's true - we all grow old - but this novel, the second of the "Hollywood" series, is still better than many other crime novels by authors in fresh bloom.

I don't think Wambaugh's work can be compared to other crime novelists. His "procedurals" have scarcely any decernable plots - though this one has more than most - but are instead character studies of both the high and low forms of life in Los Angeles. Cops and criminals and everyone in between.

Wambaugh's work is not for everybody. It certainly would not appeal to the political correct among us. Maybe that's why I like his work so much.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars L.A. Law and Disorder, July 22, 2008

By	Amanda Richards "Modest to the extreme" (Georgetown, Guyana) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Having read this novel, my Wambaugh total is now up to - well - one, to be exact. It's about LA Cops and LA people, and provides a little peek into the sordid underbelly (apologies, but I always wanted to get an opportunity to say that) of life on the Hollywood streets.

The story isn't about the famous sign or the stars on the pavement, and it's not about black birds or old women, and to be quite honest, the plot isn't really that good in the first place, but the black humor and the low morality level is what keeps the reader turning the pages.

On the side of law and order (chung-chung!) we meet Matthew McConaughey-type surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam, who have a knack for finding trouble and a lot of true grit (from the beach). There's veteran Bix Ramstead, a loving family man coasting towards retirement, and then there's potentially famous actor Nate Weiss biding his time before being discovered. There's a trio of strong female officers named Cat, Ronnie and Gert, and a few others including the officious and clueless Sergeant Treakle, but you can read about them for yourself.

On the civilian side, there's a weaselly little cokehead named Leonard, a strip club owner named Ali Aziz, his ravishingly beautiful wife (and ex-employee) Margot, and a Mexican pharmacist who's willing to turn the other cheek for a treat and a trick. You'll also find out what goes on behind the scenes with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and all the other characters on the strip.

Naturally, some of them come into contact while Wambaugh turns his all-too-human characters into the terribly obvious story-line, and although he blows most of the suspense by straight-out telling you most of the details, there are one or two little twists he keeps until the right time. He also hits pretty hard at police procedure and bureaucracy in the light of the need to maintain an untarnished image after the Rampart affair.

I'm gathering that he's written better books, and although I don't think this is one of them, it has enough juicy stuff to make you look.






Amanda Richards, July 22, 2008

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "This ain't the city of the angels, it's the city of angles, where everybody's looking for an edge.", March 26, 2008

By	Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In his waning years of productivity, the author who so beautifully portrayed the real story of the LAPD in The New Centurions, The Choirboys and The Onion Field, is keeping his hand in a strange brew of bureaucracy, politics and modern police work in this follow-up to Hollywood Station. Sprinkling the cast with some of the same eccentrics, denizens of Hollywood and connecting areas, this novel makes a half-hearted stab at the cop humor sustaining a profession that deals daily with unsavory conditions and the human suffering that attends poverty, petty criminal enterprise and a city struggling to survive a hostile environment. The Hollywood Crows are a special team assigned to the Community Relations Office, sometimes referred to as "the sissy patrol" or "the teddy bears in blue" because the risk in this work is much lower than regular tours of duty.

Granted, the streets are just as crazy, regardless of police presence: the "Characters" who inhabit Hollywood's Walk of Fame, charging tourists for photographs, making surreptitious drug deals to pad their meager profits, a breeding ground for pickpockets and other scam artists; the walk-in tanning salons that front a vigorous trade in "human services"; the ubiquitous strip clubs; the fast food venues (another place to score); and the helpless frustrations of lower income working people forced to live among the fringe-dwellers. Some of these cops mix in well, particularly Flotsam and Jestsam, muscular, tanned surfers who live for the waves, an unpopular supervisor known as "chicken lips" and "Hollywood Nate" Weiss, who proudly carries his new SAG card with his police identification. Newly assigned to the CROWS, Veronica Sinclair is paired with veteran Bix Ramstead, who may be the only monogamous cop left in LA.

Two by two, training officers and rookies and the street-smart regulars ride the streets for their daily portion of law enforcement. There are really no stars in this novel, only a wide cast of personalities, cops and citizens and the events that bring them all to one tragic moment of reckoning of shock and grief, before moving on to the next shift in a fantasy landscape that promises more than it ever delivers. Hollywood is, after all, only a city like many others, crime and problem infested, riddled with cons and criminals, everyone looking for a break. No better or worse than Las Vegas or Miami. But these are Wambaugh's people, albeit a bit frayed around the edges (Dare I say "long in the tooth?"). Clinging to what he knows best, the author's forced humor fails to disguise a weary cynicism, a tacit acknowledgment of the infinite ways people can devise to harm one another and those around them. Luan Gaines/ 2008.