Reading Joseph Wambaugh’s HOLLYWOOD STATION is like listening to a cop share a bunch of his war stories: You get a lot of lingo, sometimes too much detail, but also an abundance of craziness and “holy shit” moments that make your day job all the more miserable by comparison.

The title refers to the men and women on the police force in the heart of La-La Land, all of whom have nicknames – cops like surfing-on-the-brain partners Flotsam and Jetsam; the detective Compassionate Charlie, known for being anything but; Budgie, the new mom returning to her beat despite painfully lactating breasts; and the Oracle, the longtime sergeant who holds the whole crew together. We meet them each slowly, and Wambaugh shares their stories. Halfway in, we’re still meeting characters, which makes you think his wholly freeform approach will result in mere vignettes than an actual plot.

But how wrong you’d be. Rather skillfully and stealthily, Wambaugh plants the seeds all along for a intricate crime tale: one which involves two lovable crystal-meth addicts Farley and Olive, the latter toothless; a couple of no-good Russians; mail theft; a prostitution sting; and an ATM robbery gone horribly wrong. The quirkiness of the criminals reminded me of Elmore Leonard, the camaraderie of the cops brought to mind the 87th Precinct of Ed McBain, but Wambaugh is Wambaugh – a master in his own right, and he tells his tale with the skill of a jazz musician in an extended solo. So what if he doesn’t hit a melody until halfway through? At least you’re thoroughly entertained all the way.

This is not a novel about police officers trying to solve a crime (although they do); rather, it’s a novel about police officers themselves – colorful, flawed, human – in realistic situations, both painful and peculiar, sometimes not ending the way you’d want them. Only Wambaugh’s occasionally out-of-touch pop-culture references (Darth Vader has nothing to do with STAR TREK, for instance) remove the narrative from the realism. It’s easy to see why David E. Kelley pounced to turn this into a TV series … and why he’ll probably screw it up with his cutesy, dancing-baby aesthetic. –Rod Lott

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