Hollywood Moon

November 23, 2009
For the final and arguably best entry in his Hollywood trilogy (after "Hollywood Station" and "Hollywood Crows"), Wambaugh takes listeners on a cops-eye ride along the boulevard of broken dreams through all manner of police eccentricities and heroism, brutal violence, gallows humor, romance, marital discord, and a jaw-dropping study of the ins and outs of identity theft. Christian Rummel, his partner on the ride, translates the vivid prose into something resembling an audio play. He's already honed the voices of such characters as detective Hollywood Nate Weiss and the surfer cop team, Flotsam and Jetsam, but they're refined: Nate sounds a little more grounded, the surfers more subtly spacey. Plus there's a cast of new characters to play withcreepy ID thieves; henpecked and delusional Dewey Gleason and his chain-smoking, gravel-voiced wife, Eunice; and the chilling teenage serial rapist and prospective murderer, Malcolm Rojas. Wambaugh sets a swift pace as he drives his cops and criminals toward each other and an inevitable collision, and Rummel has no trouble keeping up, adding his own spin around the novel's hairpin turns. "A Little, Brown hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 28). (Nov.)" .

At least 15 characters hit the Los Angeles streets in this book, and because of Joseph Wambaugh's colorful writing and Christian Rummel's amazing narration, all are well differentiated and fun to follow. The diverse cops Rummel nails include a Latina, an aspiring actor, a Lothario, an Asian-American woman, a fresh-faced officer, and a surfer. Villains include a disturbed teen, a frustrated actor-turned-grifter, a husky-voiced hacker, a redneck druggie, and a hip African-American. On one fateful night all their lives intertwine. Wambaugh is at the top of his game in the latest of his recent Hollywood series. He takes the time to develop the characters while keeping the plot moving. Rummel never stumbles, shifting and deftly juggling the many identities. Under a Hollywood moon, it seems, anything can happen. M.B. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine