Hollywood Crows
by Joseph Wambaugh
Published by Little, Brown and Company
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Reviewed by Maria Elmvang
(Also available as audiobook)
Hollywood Crows is a literary version of “Crime Watch.” Joseph Wambaugh takes the reader on the streets with nine very different cops from the LAPD. Together with them we encounter lonely elderly women who see crimes everywhere (and who are sometimes right), unusual criminals, and logic-defying situations constantly reminding the cops and the readers that “This is Hollywood. Here anything can happen and usually does.”
Through Joseph Wambaugh’s characterizations he makes us either love or hate, sympathise with or be frustrated by the cops that make up the Hollywood CRO (pronounced ‘crow’) team. Like them or not, you can’t remain indifferent to them.
The one story that ties it all together is the tale of soon-to-be-divorced Margot and Ali Aziz. The cops only know Margot as a harmless socialite, dangerous to nobody but the libidos of the males she encounters. What they don’t realize is that Margot is not the helpless victim she appears, but a femme fatale who knows exactly what she wants and won’t scorn any methods to get it. Unfortunately, she’s not the only one with a deadly plan, and through her scheming she manages to ruin the life of at least one very dedicated cop, who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
A clever person once said, “Write what you know.” Joseph Wambaugh obviously took this advice to heart which shows in his writings. Having worked for LAPD himself, he can draw from personal experiences to properly depict the joys and sorrows of a police officer. Because of Wambaugh’s ability to draw the reader completely into the story, I found myself utterly unable to put down the book once I’d started it, even if there were parts that disturbed me, parts where I missed a proper resolution, and parts that I wish had been left out, but know couldn’t be, because they too are parts of a police officer’s life.
Hollywood Crows is an interesting but depressing novel that reminds us that even the good guys aren’t always good, and that things don’t always end the way they should.
Armchair Interviews says: Count on Wambaugh to tell a good story–and not always one we want to hear.
Author’s Web site: http://www.JosephWambaugh.net