In Wambaugh's gripping new audiobook about life in the country's most sensational police force, the beloved Oracle has been replaced by thin-lipped Sgt. Treacle, but the setting is the same - Hollywood: "America's nut capital".
When Nate and Bix Rumstead (a supposedly upstanding cop with serious sobriety issues) find themselves caught up with bombshell Margot Aziz, they think they're just having some fun. But in Hollywood, nothing is ever what it seems. To them, Margot is a harmless socialite, stuck in the middle of an ugly divorce from the nefarious bar-owner Ali Aziz. What Nate and Bix don't know is that Margot's no helpless victim: she's setting them both up so that she can get away with the perfect murder - and still stand to inherit her ex-husbands's ill-won fortune. What SHE doesn't know is that Aziz has replaced her sleeping pills with a poison. And then there's Leonard Stillwater, a small time tweaker whose connection to Aziz is about to shoot him into the big leagues...
Complete with scams, cokeheads, petty (and some not so petty) crimes, HOLLYWOOD CROWS offers the very best of Wambaugh: impeccable plotting, acerbic humor, and plenty of flawed but lovable characters.
Christian Rummel's roles on "Law & Order" were good training for narrating this gritty tale of community relations officers (CROWs) in "La-La Land." He excels at the flip cop jargon as well as a variety of ethnic accents. Incidents with cross-dressers, scofflaws, and the like are woven into the stories of a strip joint owner's ongoing plot to kill his stunning estranged wife, Margot, and her relationship with a policeman with movie star aspirations. Partly due to Rummel's vocal talents, the characters are believable, if not necessarily likable. A lot of energy goes into the climactic bedroom shooting scene, as well as Margot's version of it. Wambaugh's latest novel in audio may leave listeners cynical about the LAPD, but they'll be enthusiastic over Rummel's performance. J.B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
Digital Rights Information
OverDrive WMA Audiobook
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All copies of this title, including those transferred to portable devices and other media, must be deleted/destroyed at the end of the lending period.
