Customer Reviews
disappointing - By: anthony, 11 Jul 2008 
a big disappointment. this one is nothing like as funny or as entertaining as the original LAPD books. don't believe the critics.
Back with the LAPD 14 years A.C.G. (After Chief Gates) - By: Joseph Haschka, 02 Jun 2008 
It's been literallly decades since I've read a Joseph Wambaugh police procedural thriller. Once his plots left the realm of the LAPD, I lost interest. But he returns with alll the old panache with HOLLYWOOD STATION first published in 2006, 14 years after the legendary Chief Daryl Gates retired, or, as some say, was forced out by the 1992 riots that followed the wretched Rodney King episode. It's a new world for the force.
The characters of this novel are the law officers & miscreants they police in the Hollywood Division, which I drive through every day on the way to work unaware of the human dramas & comedies bubbling just below the surface. It's the beat that includes Grauman's Chinese, the Walk of Fame, the Kodak Theater (of the Oscars) & the famous HOLLYWOOD sign. On a broader scale, it's interesting to learn the author's take, as seen through the eyes of his cop heroes, on the doldrums the LAPD has entered under Gates' lackluster successors & the current activist city mayor. The federal consent decree, under which the department currently operates, is particularly odious. Only the watch of the current police chief achieves a hint of approval.
The crimes & misdemeanors of Hollywood's low-life, & the situations confronting L.A.'s finest, are often bizarre. You couldn't make this stuff up, & I suspect that Wambaugh hasn't. At the book's beginning, he gives credit to the police officers of Los Angeles, San Diego & Palm Springs for providing him with anecdotal stories. So, even if the Hollywood Division isn't quite so lively on a daily basis as depicted, the stretch to the imagination is more about frequency than substance & the descriptive "Hollyweird" perhaps has basis in fact.
Wambaugh is back! And I've already got his latest book, HOLLYWOOD CROWS (involving many of the same protagonists), on my Wish List.
Wambaugh - The best police crime writer, does it again. - By: R. Shaw, 25 May 2008 Shades of the Choirboys, with great, true to life, human cops & spicy characters. Dark, dark humour will have you chuckling. A great read by the best in the business. This reminds me to go back & read his books alll over again.
very enjoyable read - By: Rainbowdog, 09 Feb 2008 I stumbled across this new book & bought it on the strength of the memory of the last Wambaugh I had read years before 'The Black Marble' which I'd remembered I'd enjoyed very much at the time. My only concern was that it might feel a little dated to me - this has happened before when I've read again authors I'd enjoyed in years past. But no, it was fresh, lively, amusing, very entertaining. Very good in fact.
Interesting, anecdotal, funny, moving. - By: Jake Moore, 08 Nov 2007 
This book reads almost like a series of anecdotes, which makes sense when you read the blurb at the fronot thanking the input of many LAPD officers. This is a style that provides a lot of interesting stuff, but somehow doesnt alllow the narative to flow (c.f. James Lee Burke, Elmore Leonard & others). That said, some of the character development is excellent & there are some reallly moving portraits of life. There are also plenty of very funny bits & the dialogue is great. I think this is nearly 5* but not quite.
