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Hollywood Station Paperback – October 1, 2007

by Joseph Wambaugh (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 1,965 ratings
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For a cop, a night on the job means killing time and trying not to get killed. If you're a cop in Hollywood Division, it also means dealing with the most overwrought, desperate, and deluded criminals anywhere. When you're patrolling Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards, neither a good reputation nor the lessons of scandals past will help you keep your cool, your sanity, or your life when things heat up.The robbery of a Hollywood jewelry store, complete with masks and a hand grenade, quickly connects to a Russian nightclub, an undercover operation gone bloodily wrong, and a cluelessly ambitious pair of tweakers.

Putting the pieces together are the sergeant they call the Oracle and his squad of street cops. There's Budgie Polk, a twenty-something firecracker with a four-month-old at home, and Wesley Drubb, a rich boy who joined the force seeking thrills. Fausto Gamboa is the tetchy veteran, and Hollywood Nate is the one who never shuts up about movies. They spend their days in patrol cars and their nights in the underbelly of a city that never sleeps. From their headquarters at Hollywood Station, they see the glamour city for what it is: a field of land mines, where the mundane is dangerous and the dangerous is mundane.
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Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 5
    Hollywood Station
  2. Print length
    432 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Vision
  5. Publication date
    October 1, 2007
  6. Dimensions
    4 x 1.25 x 6.75 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0446401242
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0446401241
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joseph Wambaugh, a former LAPD detective sergeant, is the bestselling author of seventeen prior works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Choirboys and The Onion Field. In 2004, he was named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. He lives in southern California.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vision; Reprint edition (October 1, 2007)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0446401242
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0446401241
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.7 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4 x 1.25 x 6.75 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 1,965 ratings

About the author

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Joseph Wambaugh

Joseph Wambaugh

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Joseph Wambaugh, a former LAPD detective sergeant, is the bestselling author of eighteen prior works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Choirboys and The Onion Field. Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times' said, "Joseph Wambaugh is one of those Los Angeles authors whose popular success always has overshadowed his importance as a writer. Wambaugh is an important writer not simply because he's ambitious and technically accomplished, but also because he 'owns' a critical slice of L.A.'s literary real estate: the Los Angeles Police Department -- not just its inner workings, but also its relationship to the city's political establishment and to its intricately enmeshed social classes. There is no other American metropolis whose civic history is so inextricably intertwined with the history of its police department. That alone would make Wambaugh's work significant, but the importance of his best fiction and nonfiction is amplified by his unequaled ability to capture the nuances of the LAPD's isolated and essentially Hobbesian tribal culture."

Understandably, then, Wambaugh, who lives in California, is known as the "cop-author" with emphasis on the former, since, according to him, most of his fantasies involve the arrest and prosecution of half of California's motorists. Wambaugh still prefers the company of police officers and interviews hundreds of them for story material. However, he is aghast that these days most of the young cops drink iced tea or light beer, both of which he finds exceedingly vile, causing him to obsessively fume with Hamlet that, 'The time is out of joint.' He expects to die in a road rage encounter. For more information please visit www.josephwambaugh.net or www.hollywoodmoon.com.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
1,965 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Wingman Wayne
5.0 out of 5 stars "Political Correctness Gone Mad"
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2006
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In reading "Hollywood Station" you'll be struck by the dichotomy of young cops and old veterans and I can't help but wonder if Wambaugh, writing his first novel in a decade, was feeling his age. Despite the lapse in time, Joseph is still the very best author to write in a genre he almost single-handedly created: the "police procedural." I think it's significant that the wisest, most senior officer in the station, the aptly named "Oracle" is just about the same age as Wambaugh himself. Coincidence? I think not!

The famed (or notorious) Wambaugh humor is here, wickedly pointed and this time with an overarching target: the Department of Justice consent decree that's been monitoring LAPD's every move for going on six years now.

New clichés and slang: "Rover" instead of "HT" or "Brick;" 999 key instead of call box key; dispatch via MDT (Mobile Data Terminal) vs. radio broadcast; and PSR (Public Service Representative - a sort of catch all job description used by dispatchers and, less often, civilian administrative workers).

This is a much different LA from Wambaugh's earlier novels. It's a multicultural LA - no longer primarily Latino and African-American, but now includes everyone from Muslims to militant Gay activists and transgendered hookers. Store-front police sub-stations feature "... LAPD literature lying around in English, Spanish, Thai, Farsi, and other languages for the polyglot citizenry of the Los Angeles melting pot." Like the old car commercial - this ain't your dad's PD.

The crime that provides the underlying theme for the story is little more than a excuse for weaving together the many gritty vignettes of cop's personal lives and the toll being a "peace officer" extracts in Hollywood, widely considered "the heart of Los Angeles." I get the feeling that Wambaugh is doing more than presenting the challenges faced by LA's current cops - he's expressing his personal amazement that anyone could do this job, or would even want to.

The real villain, Wambaugh makes clear, is the DOJ consent decree that assumes the cops are guilty until proven innocent. Chafing under federal oversight, outraged cops complain that they get more grief from shooting a dog than a person. Wambaugh quotes statistics proving that cops are inventing white, male field interrogations rather than be accused of racial profiling. In other words: the consent decree, rather than increasing the honesty of the street cop, is making them into consistent (though not very convincing) liars. One character wails, "we should be lawyers; they get paid a lot more to lie."

Wambaugh has a female Detective, Andi McCrea, offer what could be a scathing cop's eye view of Rafael Perez, David Mack, Nino Durden, the Rampart Scandal and the Warren Commission. There follows withering criticism of LAPD police chiefs Willy Williams, Bernard Parks, and William Bratton though none are mentioned by name. I'm warning you now: this is raw, adult talk and not for the timid: Liberals, democrats, and some minorities are going to be offended. .

That Wambaugh believes that he's accurately reflecting the view of the rank and file, there is no doubt. In interviews, Wambaugh tells how, without exception, no cop would talk to him unless he guaranteed that he would only take handwritten notes: no tape recorders. They've apparently learned the lesson of Mark Fuhrman that even years and years later, any casual comment can destroy a career.

Fans of Wambaugh will be thrilled: he's honed his art to a razor's edge and he wields it here with murderous skill. New readers may well be shocked by his frank depictions of the absolute worst that humanity can offer.

All in all, this maybe the best of his novels. But be warned: if this were a movie it would earn a hard "R," if not an "X," rating for it's violence, adult language and sexual situations.

Personally, I wouldn't have missed it for the world!
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Bic Parker
4.0 out of 5 stars Forever Wambaugh
Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2023
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Here is the same type of warm, bitter, sentimental, cynical, sharply observed writing that blew critics and readers away when he dropped his first novels, only now it isn't appreciated. Same style, different reaction. Maybe people are too sensitive, too ready to be offended? Too bad because this is the real deal. My grandfather was an LA County sheriff's deputy for over 30 years, and this is the way he talked, the stories he told. Yeah it was crude and sounded racist as heck but racism is as racism does; he spouted outrageous spiel as a way to let off steam. That's how I understand Wambaugh's cops to be. Like it or not this portrayal is honest.

As for the story, it's built like so many of his tales: lots of episodic vignettes, some extremely grim others just hilarious, to let us get to know the characters. Meanwhile the plot simmers in the background until it picks up steam and builds to the shattering conclusion. I recommend this book for grown ups who have a sense of humor and compassion and are not scandalized by rough language and indelicate attitudes. Cops have a tough job and Wambaugh is unsurpassed in telling their stories.

As a final note, I can't rate Hollywood Station 5 stars because its not up to the standards he set with The Choirboys and The Secrets of Harry Bright, The Black Marble, The Golden Orange . . . but still an excellent novel among the best of its kind.
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Gary Griffiths
5.0 out of 5 stars "Stay Real, Farley"
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2007
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One word: wow! Wambaugh is back - big time. A stripped down masterpiece of what it means to "protect and serve" in post-Rodney King LA, rendered with the passion and conviction that only an ex-cop like Wambaugh could muster. "Hollywood Station" will make you laugh, the petty politics and bureaucratic meddling will frustrate you, the heroics and camaraderie of understaffed and overworked street cops will make you proud, but most of all, the tales of "Hollyweird's" sleaze, glitz, crime and justice will keep the pages turning at the pace of high speed chase.

The plot spins loosely around the hand grenade-robbery of a jewelry store by Russian mobsters and the antics of a pair of burned out meth freaks, Farley and "Olive Oyl" Ramsdale. But the plot is only a convenient backdrop for Wambaugh to showcase a colorful collection of characters on both sides of the law. Told through a "Hill Street Blues-like" series of vignettes of the patrolmen and women of LA's Hollywood station, the legendary station sergeant, "the Oracle", dispenses wisdom honed by over forty years on LA's mean streets, playing mom, dad, coach and priest to his young troopers. But seemingly disconnected storylines weave together in time for a slick and satisfying conclusion, complete with a neat and unexpected little twist. Reading Wambaugh again after such a long hiatus reminds me that the popular crime writers of today - Connelly, Lehane, Crais - are beholden to Wambaugh much like "Flotsam and Jetsam", "Hollywood" Nate Weiss, Budgie Polk, and the other fictional officers to Hollywood station are in debt to "the Oracle." Gritty and realistic, this long awaited return was worth every minute, a heartfelt and poignant tribute to LAPD's finest. As the Oracle would say, "go on out tonight and have some fun," and read this book.
21 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!
Reviewed in Canada on November 16, 2021
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Joseph Wambaugh works are always so realistic. The charachters in all of his books are so different. He brings them to life by his writings, this book is no different. The story and the charachters will hold your attention until the end. If you are a fan of detective stories this is the Author to read.
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C. T. Heywood
5.0 out of 5 stars back to his best
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 12, 2013
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Mr Wambaugh is back. If you enjoyed The Choir Boys you are you are going to love this. Hollywood Station has all the crazy zany characters that will have you laughing out loud in front of people, who wonder what the hell you are reading, but there is also a serious message here. The police force of today are so hogtied by the pc brigade and the claim culture of modern society that they find it almost impossible to react to an incident without finding themselves under investigation. The police will soon no longer be able to police and protect the very public who are destroying and eroding their powers of arrest.
This book is full of funny, crazy real life characters doing there best in the mad world of Hollywood. A fantastic read, thank you Mr Wambaugh.
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Alexander W. Doepel
5.0 out of 5 stars Glitter and Glitz
Reviewed in Germany on December 12, 2013
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I'm asking readers who have been around long enough to remember Glitter Dome by Wambaugh and Glitz by Leonard: Can you see how Hollywood Station is a fusion of the specific qualities of the earlier works by these two extraordinary writers? I've been reading their books for thirty years now. Leonard isn't going to write another one, which is sad enough. And Wambaugh has become old and soft - just like myself. So I actually don't mind the sentimental ending of the book, which others might find a bit forced. What I love about Hollywood Station - compared to his early books - is how Wambaugh needs less words today to achieve the same dense atmosphere . He has become economical in a way that reminds me so much of Leonard. But - other than Leonard - he doesn't need improbably cool heroes to tell his stories. His heroes are very normal people, heroic only in their resilience to remain humane and optimistic against all odds. If you have been reading his other books you know what I mean. If not, then start reading. Luckily both, Wambaugh and Leonard, have been quite prolific.
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stasw
4.0 out of 5 stars Hill Street Blues for the 21st Century
Reviewed in Australia on August 1, 2014
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Lighter in tone than other Wambaugh that I have read, this is nevertheless a satisfying and highly entertaining novel with diverse well drawn characters, for the kind of tale it is. While I sympathised with Wambaugh's distress at the micro-management of police work in the modern day, I couldn't help thinking of the real and ongoing problems of police brutality and corruption that still exist in the world.

If you were a fan of the TV series Hill Street Blues, this has a similar combination of humour and pathos, compelling stories and interesting characters on both sides of the thin blue line. Wambaugh is a talented writer and I will be returning to Hollywood Station in the other novels he has written in this series.
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tuppence
3.0 out of 5 stars テレビドラマのような警察小説
Reviewed in Japan on June 29, 2008
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　あまり知らなかったのですが、作者は元警官のベテラン作家らしいです。
　ハリウッドという特殊の場所で起きる、様々な事件と
パトロール警官たちの日常を描いた群像劇です。

　決して、意外な犯人が明らかになるような難事件が起きるわけではありません。
　パートナーを組む何組かの警官たちがそれぞれに遭遇する、
ホームレスのけんかや薬物中毒者の奇行、騒音の通報などの事件の
短いエピソードがいくつもつづられるなかで、
ひとつの大きな強盗事件の捜査がゆっくりと進展していくしかけです
（元は新聞かなにかの連載だったのでしょうか）。
　それぞれの個性ある警官たちの人物像があざやかで、
また、小さなささやかなできごとに、にやりと笑わせたり、ほろりとさせられたりします。

　衝撃的な、あるいは痛快な大作ではありませんが、読みやすいと思います。
　サードウォッチみたいな、アメリカ連続ものの警察テレビドラマを見ている感じです。
　
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