Sunday, March 08, 2009

A chat ...

... with Joe Wambaugh: The Writer Who Redefined LAPD. (Hat tip, Paul Davis.)

3 comments:

  1. Wambaugh begins his new novel with this sentence:
    "Nathan Weiss, called Hollywood Nate by the other cops because of his obsession, recently waning, to break into the movie business, had left Watch 5, the midwatch, eight months earlier, shortly after the very senior sergeant known as the Oracle had died of a massive heart attack there on the police Walk of Fame in front of Hollywood Station."
    Yikes. That sentence has more twists-and-turns than a two lane road through L.A.'s Topanga Canyon. I'm not saying there is a value judgment in that comment, but Wambaugh's narrative seems to start off a bit convoluted. Nevertheless, I will keep an open mind when I read the new Wambaugh.

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  2. I would amend my comment by deleting the word "new" from my last sentence. Obviously, I have not kept current with Wambaugh's output.

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  3. I've been covering the police and the crime beat for a good number of years, and I believe that no writer portrays the police more completely than Joseph Wambaugh.

    His cops are real people and not the over-the-top, rogue supercops and other one dimensional characters one usually finds in novels, movies and TV programs. Wambaugh is also very funny.

    His upcoming new novel, "Hollywood Moon," is the third in a triligy of first-rate tales about the police officers who work out Hollywood Station in LA.

    I enjoyed the first two, "Hollywood Station" and "Hollywood CROWS," as I've enjoyed all of Wambaugh's previous novels and nonfiction books.

    I also enjoyed talking to Joe Wambaugh about his books and real cops. My interview with him can be read at www.orchardpressmysteries.com/semper_cop.htm

    Paul Davis
    http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/site/

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