Unless you’re a police officer, you can only imagine what it’s like having a partner.
We see it portrayed in books and films, and I gather it’s something like a marriage. So when you’re starting out together – when you get assigned a new partner – it’s sort of like an arranged marriage. There’s a sniffing period, a getting-to-know-you time, and then finally, there’s a bond formed.
- WAMBAUGH
Or not. Sometimes it doesn’t work out.
And that’s one of the reasons we love crime fiction . . . detective novels . . . police procedurals. By any name, they always smell as sweet. We’ve been in love with these books since Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote Crime and Punishment. These books are not just about bad guys and good guys. They’re also about people and relationships and how human beings learn to love each other, or hate each other.
This is particularly good time for those of us who love these books. Go to your favorite local bookstore and these two will be on the front table, inviting you to read them:
- Hollywood Moon (Little, Brown, $26.99) by Joseph Wambaugh
- Nine Dragons (Little, Brown, $27.99) by Michael Connelly
Wambaugh did much to invent the modern version of this kind of novel and Connelly is one of the form’s greatest practitioners, a worthy inheritor of the traditions and grace of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
Considering the terrible cold we’ve suffered lately, I advise you to cuddle up with these books. (Trust me. I’m a doctor.)
Let’s talk about Wambaugh first. Hollywood Moon is the third installment in his series on Hollywood Station, but the first two are not required reading before picking up the latest book. Though the books share the same cast of characters – including surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam and frustrated actor Hollywood Nate – it doesn’t matter in what order they are read.
CONNELLY
These novels all have a narrative arc, but the stories are told as a series of vignettes, glimpses into the alternating monotony and frenzy that is police life. During the sniffing period, two new partners sit side by side and tell each other their resumes. One turns to her partner and says, “I love your stories.”
And that’s how we feel about Wambaugh. He is so comfortable with the form that his books appear to be effortless, the supreme compliment for a writer. He makes it look easy, which means it was anything but. Wambaugh’s been publishing great crime fiction for 40 years now and seems to be peaking – in my view, at least – with the Hollywood series. And that’s something, considering he wrote The Choirboys and The Blue Knight. (Wambaugh is also gifted with non-fiction. Check out The Onion Field sometime.)
We could also say that Connelly is at some kind of peak, but we seem to say that with every new book. Like Wambaugh, he explores the mean streets of LA, where he worked for a decade as a police reporter for the Los Angeles Times. (Connelly is a Floridian, however, and had the good sense to come back home a decade ago. He lives in the Tampa Bay area.)Connelly’s been publishing for nearly 20 years now.
He started at a high level with The Black Echo and just kept soaring. His usual protagonist has been police detective Harry Bosch, a modern equivalent of Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. Connelly seems to take us deeper into Bosch’s soul with each new book and despite the action that propels readers through Nine Dragons – and there are at least three oh my God! moments – it’s also a great character study. We’ve known Harry for two decades, but each time Connelly gives us a Bosch novel, we find out exactly how complex this guy is.
Don’t get the idea, though, that it’s just some meditation on a man’s character and commitment. It is that, but it also features murders, kidnappings, flights to Hong Kong, and a battle with a gun-shy partner.
Connelly’s developed several other continuing characters. Mickey Haller (from The Lincoln Lawyer) was center stage for The Brass Verdict 18 months back and reporter Jack McEvoy (from The Poet) made a return appearance last year in Connelly’s masterful Scarecrow. Bosch made cameo appearances in those books – we love the cast of characters floating between his novels – but this is the first sustained look at Bosch in a couple of years.
We feel greedy, but the character is so fascinating that we always want more. Critics love Connelly’s books, but there was an odd rap on him in the New York Times last year: these books are great, the critic said, but they’re coming too fast and furious.
Huh? What the hell is wrong with that? This is one good thing of which we can’t get enough