Hollywood Hills

March 28, 2011
Wambaugh once again delves into the life of his quirky LAPD officer, "Hollywood Nate," and the surfer dudes, officers Flotsam and Jetsam. It would be enough to merely follow these cops on their patrol as they encounter all the odd, comic, and at times tragic characters that "Hollyweird" has to offer, but Wambaugh ties in smart complications: two drugged-out kids who quite by chance become involved in a perpetually troubled art theft attempted by a pretentious art dealer and the ex-con turned house man that he enlists as his partner in crime. Christian Rummel offers a well-thought-out, nicely rendered performance, shifting in tone from the wry and humorous to the pragmatic and heartbreaking. His characterizations are simple and effective, never overreaching in execution but still giving each character a distinctive and individual voice. Fans of Wambaugh will not be disappointed. A Little, Brown hardcover.

November 15, 2010

Wambaugh's Hollywood trilogy (Hollywood Moon, 2009, etc.) sprouts a fourth volume, another offbeat mix of broadly satirical comedy and a cast of cops apparently waiting for a procedural that never kicks in.

Veteran Officer "Hollywood" Nate Weiss, the only member of the LAPD with a Screen Actors Guild card, hopes that meeting second-tier director/producer Rudy Ressler might be his big break. Rudy wants Hollywood Nate to keep an eye on the art-stocked home of the late meatpacking king Sammy Brueger while Rudy's off in Tuscany with his fiancée, Benny's widow Leona, who comes on to Hollywood Nate in a way that seems likely to seal the deal. Alas, the real action at the Brueger place has nothing to do with the movies. Beverly Hills art dealer Nigel Wickland, whom Leona invited out to inspect her security measures, has decided to steal two of Sammy's prize paintings and replace them with replicas. His plan requires him to embed an accomplice, ex-con caterer-turned-butler Raleigh L. Dibble, in Leona's household while she's away, ostensibly to tend her ancient brother-in-law Marty, but actually to provide Nigel access to the house. On the other side of the tracks, high-school dropout Jonas Claymore, too strung out on OxyContin to hold his job parking cars, schemes with his long-suffering housemate Megan Burke to improve his own standard of living by breaking into the homes of the wealthy. You'd never guess which home he picks, or when. The guardians of the law who've been invited to this Hiaasen-esque carnival of criminal losers seem like outsiders, and that may be just the point. Hollywood Nate, his old buddy Snuffy Salcedo, probationary Officer Britney Small, her Field Training Officer Della Ravelle, surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam—all of them do precious little detection or investigation, but a couple of them discharge their service weapons to significant effect.

Though everything takes forever to happen, the laughs are authentic, and a couple of endearing heroes emerge. A middling entry in this waggish series.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 15, 2010
Wambaugh runs the same plays that hes used repeatedly in his Hollywood series of cop novels, jumping between the lives of street people, the ridiculously wealthy denizens of the Hollywood Hills, and the cops who careen among them. This series has several cop stars, including Hollywood Nate Weiss, who has a SAG card and is actively pursuing a movie career, and a pair of surfer cops, known as Flotsam and Jetsam. As usual, Wambaugh gives the reader a lot of street action and one showcased plotline. This time, the cops come into contact (through Hollywood Nate) with a B-movie director, his Botoxed girlfriend, and a ring of teen burglars targeting upscale homes. The highly entertaining plotting is offset this time by Styrofoam characters and unlikely dialogue. Fans expect Wambaugh to give them actual cop talk, but he misfires here, giving his cops lines like gymnosophical gyrations of that slammin speaker. In addition, the opening scene is needlessly pornographic; Wambaugh doesnt need to try to get readers attention this way. A good novel but not at all representative of what Wambaugh can do.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)