Nov. 24, 2009
BOOK REVIEW: Wambaugh Continues Hollywood Station Novels with 'Hollywood Moon'
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Hooray for Hollywood
That screwy ballyhooey Hollywood
Where any office boy or young mechanic can be a panic
With just a good looking pan
And any barmaid can be a star maid
If she dances with or without a fan -- "Hooray for Hollywood" Lyrics by Johnny Mercer,
Music by Richard Whiting,
from the 1937 Warner Bros film "Hollywood Hotel"
The cops working out of the Hollywood Station of the Los Angeles Police Department are often difficult to distinguish from the crooks they're trying to find in Joseph Wambaugh's "Hollywood Moon" (Little, Brown and Company, 352 pages, $26.99).
Hollywood Moon, Wambaugh's third Hollywood station novel (after Hollywood Crows and Hollywood Station), could be called a "dramedy," in its combination of laughs provided by the people on both sides of the law, along with real life terror and tragedy.
In keeping with the apparent career goal of everyone working and/or living in Hollywood wanting to be an actor, Wambaugh gives us actor turned con man Dewey Gleason and the smarter half of the team, his wife Eunice, a character who could have been created by the late, great Donald E. Westlake. Master of disguise Dewey is the outside man, while his computer-savvy, chain-smoking wife creates the identity theft scams and keeps the profits hidden from her spouse.
Then there's Hollywood Nate Weiss, a police officer who has a SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card and has played cops in several TV movies (are they still making made-for-TV movies?). Weiss is partnered with Dana Vaughn, a 43-year-old single mom who's attractive enough to be a star and is a street-wise officer with 21 years on the force. Hollywood Nate hates the way his partner patronizes him by calling him "Honey," but he respects her hard-won experience in the male dominated LAPD.
Definitely New School are the novel's two surfer cops, nicknamed Flotsam and Jetsam, who manage to just barely meet the grooming requirements of their Old School watch commander. They provide comic relief with their surfer dude talk and antics. What's a "Hollywood Moon, " you ask. It's a full moon, when even the regular craziness of Hollywood amps up and spills over, according to station lore. The cops working out of the station have their superstitions. Dewey Gleason is a non-violent criminal, but he's hired an odd couple of helpers, a dreadlocked sophisticated black man from New Orleans named Tristan and a Polish-American biker from Arkansas named Jerzy who trade insults as they go about their duties with Gleason, whom they know as Jakob Kessler. Gleason uses a different disguise for each of his scams. Into this mix comes 19-year-old Malcolm Rojas, Hispanic on his father's side, Anglo on his mother's side. Malcolm works in a home improvement store but dreams of fame and wealth working with Dewey. He seethes with rage toward women and attacks middle-aged women who remind him of his cloying mom. Weiss and Vaughn are the lead officers in the search for Rojas. Younger readers who are familiar with Michael Connelly and T. Jefferson Parker might ask "Who is Joseph Wambaugh?" He's a former LAPD detective sergeant -- he served from 1960 to 1974 -- who created the Southern California police procedural genre with such iconic novels as "The New Centurions," "The Choirboys," and "The Blue Knight." With "Hollywood Moon," his novel total reaches 14. The 72-year-old native of East Pittsburgh, PA ha also written five nonfiction books, of which "The Onion Field," a 1973 book about the kidnapping of two LAPD officers that was made into an outstanding 1979 movie starring James Woods, John Savage, Ted Danson and Ronny Cox is probably the most famous. Wambaugh wrote the screenplay. I haven't read a Wambaugh novel in a long time -- a condition I will remedy as soon as possible -- and I didn't know if he had maintained the high standards of his previous novels. My conclusion: "Hollywood Moon" is vintage Wambaugh and that's as good as it gets in this genre. His writing skill and character delineation transcends the genre, for those who are about to ask that question. Publisher's web site: www.hachettebookgroup.com
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BOOK REVIEW: Wambaugh Continues Hollywood Station Novels with 'Hollywood Moon'
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Hooray for Hollywood
That screwy ballyhooey Hollywood
Where any office boy or young mechanic can be a panic
With just a good looking pan
And any barmaid can be a star maid
If she dances with or without a fan -- "Hooray for Hollywood" Lyrics by Johnny Mercer,
Music by Richard Whiting,
from the 1937 Warner Bros film "Hollywood Hotel"
The cops working out of the Hollywood Station of the Los Angeles Police Department are often difficult to distinguish from the crooks they're trying to find in Joseph Wambaugh's "Hollywood Moon" (Little, Brown and Company, 352 pages, $26.99).
Hollywood Moon, Wambaugh's third Hollywood station novel (after Hollywood Crows and Hollywood Station), could be called a "dramedy," in its combination of laughs provided by the people on both sides of the law, along with real life terror and tragedy.
In keeping with the apparent career goal of everyone working and/or living in Hollywood wanting to be an actor, Wambaugh gives us actor turned con man Dewey Gleason and the smarter half of the team, his wife Eunice, a character who could have been created by the late, great Donald E. Westlake. Master of disguise Dewey is the outside man, while his computer-savvy, chain-smoking wife creates the identity theft scams and keeps the profits hidden from her spouse.
Then there's Hollywood Nate Weiss, a police officer who has a SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card and has played cops in several TV movies (are they still making made-for-TV movies?). Weiss is partnered with Dana Vaughn, a 43-year-old single mom who's attractive enough to be a star and is a street-wise officer with 21 years on the force. Hollywood Nate hates the way his partner patronizes him by calling him "Honey," but he respects her hard-won experience in the male dominated LAPD.
Definitely New School are the novel's two surfer cops, nicknamed Flotsam and Jetsam, who manage to just barely meet the grooming requirements of their Old School watch commander. They provide comic relief with their surfer dude talk and antics. What's a "Hollywood Moon, " you ask. It's a full moon, when even the regular craziness of Hollywood amps up and spills over, according to station lore. The cops working out of the station have their superstitions. Dewey Gleason is a non-violent criminal, but he's hired an odd couple of helpers, a dreadlocked sophisticated black man from New Orleans named Tristan and a Polish-American biker from Arkansas named Jerzy who trade insults as they go about their duties with Gleason, whom they know as Jakob Kessler. Gleason uses a different disguise for each of his scams. Into this mix comes 19-year-old Malcolm Rojas, Hispanic on his father's side, Anglo on his mother's side. Malcolm works in a home improvement store but dreams of fame and wealth working with Dewey. He seethes with rage toward women and attacks middle-aged women who remind him of his cloying mom. Weiss and Vaughn are the lead officers in the search for Rojas. Younger readers who are familiar with Michael Connelly and T. Jefferson Parker might ask "Who is Joseph Wambaugh?" He's a former LAPD detective sergeant -- he served from 1960 to 1974 -- who created the Southern California police procedural genre with such iconic novels as "The New Centurions," "The Choirboys," and "The Blue Knight." With "Hollywood Moon," his novel total reaches 14. The 72-year-old native of East Pittsburgh, PA ha also written five nonfiction books, of which "The Onion Field," a 1973 book about the kidnapping of two LAPD officers that was made into an outstanding 1979 movie starring James Woods, John Savage, Ted Danson and Ronny Cox is probably the most famous. Wambaugh wrote the screenplay. I haven't read a Wambaugh novel in a long time -- a condition I will remedy as soon as possible -- and I didn't know if he had maintained the high standards of his previous novels. My conclusion: "Hollywood Moon" is vintage Wambaugh and that's as good as it gets in this genre. His writing skill and character delineation transcends the genre, for those who are about to ask that question. Publisher's web site: www.hachettebookgroup.com
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