I love a good police story, and I love a bit of Hollywood glitz and glamour so when I read the synopsis of this book I thought it sounded like something I’d enjoy. After reading the first chapter that came complete with a pair of surfer dude cops known to the rest of their team as Flotsam and Jetsam and I thought I’d made the right choice. Over the next few chapters however new characters and plot threads were brought in and I found myself becoming less sure about what the plot of the story actually was – there were so many things going on. I stuck with it though and was glad I did as bit by bit Wambaugh wove the seemingly unrelated threads together to tell a thoroughly engaging tale. I found at times that it reminded me a lot of the tv programme Southland, a definite positive for me as I’ve been missing it for some time now.

There are plenty of interesting characters to be found within the pages of Hollywood Hills. I did find initially that I confused a couple from time to time but pretty quickly I got them all sorted and separated. Some of the characters did at times feel a bit caricaturish, for example the experienced female cop who spends all her time explaining to her female trainee the ways her male colleagues will act badly towards her. Flotsam and Jetsam remained firm favourites with me, their bromance was written so well that I would have happily read a spin off novel featuring them as the main characters.

As I’ve said after a slightly shaky start I got really wrapped up in this book and thoroughly enjoyed it. I shall certainly add Joseph Wambaugh to my list of authors to look out for in the future. ( )

Chalk up another successful novel in Joseph Wambaugh’s continuing saga of the fascinating “coppers” in the country’s most colorful police precinct, the guys and gals of Hollywood Station. In an earlier post I reviewed the three previous novels in this ongoing story (http://malwarwickonbooks.com/?s=Joseph+Wambaugh), back when I was so foolish as to assume that they constituted a trilogy. Not so, clearly: there’s just too much life left in the surfer cops, Flotsam and Jetsam; Hollywood Nate, who is still chasing after stardom with his SAG card; and even the Oracle, whose portrait stands on the wall of the squad room amid the movie posters — and the Oracle actually died somewhere along the way, victim of a massive heart attack after 46 years on the job.

There’s a plot to Hollywood Hills, just as there was in every one of its three predecessors, but this is a novel about people, not events. There’s just enough action to drive the characters from the opening page to the very end, showing their stuff along the way.You may wonder what happens next, but you’re likely to be far more curious about how things turn out for Flotsam, Jetsam, Hollywood Nate, and that young female rookie cop.

Like so many of Joseph Wambaugh’s police procedurals, Hollywood Hills charms with what it reveals about the nitty-gritty of life on the front line of the Los Angeles Police Department. Because these coppers are uniformed officers — street cops — not high-powered detectives or police politicians. Clearly, Joseph Wambaugh has stayed closely in touch with the Department he left as a detective sergeant nearly half a century ago. ( )