All these somehow deeply human characters will find their lives improbably and inextricably intertwined on the equally improbable Hollywood streets.
Here's how the long-suffering Sgt. Lee Murillo -- inheritor of the Oracle's mantle -- sends his troops out for a night's policing: "Ladies and Gentlemen and those of you who do not fit either category, I have an announcement to make. . . . There is a real Hollywood moon tonight. As you know, a full moon over Hollywood brings out the beast rather than the best in our citizens. The car that comes back with the weirdest encounter of the night will get an extra-large pizza with the works." (There's no way to do justice here to the case of double necrophilia at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery that wins that pizza.)
His officers also are reminded that "post-op transsexuals will be searched by female officers, pre-op by male officers. Booking in either the men's or women's jail will also depend upon their medical status and condition. And you will not refer to Santa Monica Blvd. as Sodom-Monica because of the number of male prostitutes there."
Among Wambaugh's particular strengths as a writer is his ability to blend two uniquely L.A. sensibilities: those of noir fiction and the classic screenplay. That's natural enough, since after 14 novels and dozens of screenplays and episodic television scripts, he's a master of both genres. His evocation of Hollywood taco stands with their unforgiving fluorescent lights and flaking Frogtown bungalows is pitch perfect; similarly, he understands the narrative propulsion that comes from economically sketched visual portraits and dialogue crisp as a CAA agent's starched cuff.
In this novel's Dewey and Eunice, he's given us a whole new -- and yet, wonderfully traditional -- take on contemporary, post-feminist Hollywood grifters: "The next day was to be the most momentous in his life. At such a moment, he could face and admit who Dewey Gleason really was: failed actor, failed screenwriter, mediocre forger and thief. At such a time, all denial was stripped away. He thought of his brother and sister in Seattle, a civil engineer and a schoolteacher. Both had spouses and children and were ostensibly happy, yet he'd always felt he was smarter and more accomplished than either of them. For years he'd blamed his failures on the show-business bug that bit him during his high school years. Then later, he'd decided it wasn't a bug, it was a . . . vampire bat that sucked Seattle right out of him and eventually steered him to Hollywood. And this was where it would all finally end, one way or the other. . . . As he faced his 50th birthday in extreme desperation, he felt old, as old as original sin. Dewey knew that his plan could lead to extreme violence. And that made him get out of bed before daybreak and make his fourth trip to the bathroom."
