Hollywood Hills (Hollywood Station Series #4)

by Joseph Wambaugh

Overview

The legendary Hollywood Hills are home to wealth, fame, and power — passing through the neighborhood, it's hard not to get a little greedy.

LAPD veteran "Hollywood Nate" Weiss could take or leave the opulence, but he wouldn't say no to onscreen fame. He may get his shot when he catches the appreciative eye of B-list director Rudy Ressler, and his troublemaking fiancée, Leona Brueger, the older-but-still-foxy widow of a processed-meat tycoon. Nate tries to elude her crafty seductions, but consents to keep an eye on their estate in the Hollywood Hills while they're away.

Also minding the mansion is Raleigh Dibble, a hapless ex-con trying to put the past behind him. Raleigh is all too happy to be set up for the job — as butler-cum-watchdog — by Nigel Wickland, Leona's impeccably dressed art dealer. What Raleigh doesn't realize is that under the natty clothes and posh accent, Nigel has a nefarious plan: two paintings hanging on the mansion's walls will guarantee them more money than they've ever seen.

Everyone's dreams are just within reach — the only problem is, this is Hollywood. A circle of teenage burglars that the media has dubbed The Bling Ring has taken to pillaging the homes of Hollywood celebutants like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, and when a pair of drug-addled young copycats stumbles upon Nigel's heist, that's just the beginning of the disaster to come. Soon Hollywood Nate, surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam, and the rest of the team at Hollywood Station have a deadly situation on their hands.

Hollywood Hills is a raucous and dangerous roller coaster ride that showcases Joseph Wambaugh in vintage form.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780446584081
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	07/01/2011
Series:	Hollywood Station Series , #4
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	229,839
Product dimensions:	4.00(w) x 6.78(h) x 1.24(d)

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.

Read an Excerpt

Hollywood Hills

A Novel

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By Wambaugh, Joseph

Grand Central Publishing

Copyright © 2011 Wambaugh, Joseph
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780446584081

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ONE

THE BUTT-FLOSS BUNNY’S busted, bro,” said the alliteration-loving, sunbaked blond surfer. He was already in his black wet suit, lying on the sand and ogling the photo shoot thirty yards farther south on Malibu Beach on a late summer day that made Southern California’s kahunas wonder why the rest of the world lived anywhere else.

“They can’t jam her, dude,” his taller surfing partner said, hair darker blond and also streaked with highlights, as he squirmed into his own black wet suit. “The ordinance says no nude sunbathing. Well, she ain’t sunbathing and she’s wearing a gold eye patch over her cookie and a pair of Dr. Scholl’s corn pads over her nibs. So she ain’t technically unclothed, even though she is, like, hormonally speaking, as naked as Minnie the mermaid who haunts my dreams.”

“Anyways, everybody can see she ain’t no surf bunny,” said the shorter surfer. “Even her toenails are way jeweled up and all perfectamundo. So if chocka chicks wanna go denuded for a professional photo op, they deserve a pass.”

“She deserves more than that for putting up with that met-sex woffie, for sure,” the tall surfer said, referring to the skeletal metrosexual photographer in a tight pink T-shirt, with a fall of so casual highlighted hair draped over his non-camera eye. The photographer was yapping orders to his perspiring young male assistant, whose gelled hair was combed up from the sides in a faux-hawk ’do, almost as fast as he clicked photos of the redhead.

“If she gets a ticket, it should be for littering a public beach with those two hodads in rainbow rubber, not for displaying her fabuloso physique,” the shorter surfer replied, alluding to the two male models sharing the photo session as mere backdrop.

One was wearing a cherry-red wet suit with a white stripe up one leg, and the other a lemon-yellow wet suit equally offensive to the observing ring of sneering water enforcers who claimed this part of Malibu as kahuna turf. They viewed anyone wearing anything but a solid black or navy wet suit as dissing surfing traditions, and as a legitimate target to be surfboard-speared if they dared enter the water to claim a wave.

That lip-curling judgment was further confirmed by the leashes attached to the spanking-new longboards being used as props, surfboard leashes being almost as objectionable as colored wet suits to the gathering group of surfing purists watching the goings-on. The longboards, one turquoise, one violet, were positioned directly behind the magnificent redhead, who kept changing poses for the photographer. He was carefully framing provocative body shots fore and aft, unfazed by the L.A. Sheriff’s Department black-and-white pulling into a parking space reserved for emergency vehicles.

“Here comes five-oh,” said the taller surfer to his partner when two uniformed deputies, a young man and an older woman, got out and strode across the sand toward the photo shoot.

“Never a cop when you need one, bro,” the shorter surfer noted. “And we don’t need one now. The last time the little scallywag jiggled, one of her corn pads popped loose, which was like, too cool for school.”

The taller surfer said, “Roger that. She is fully hot. Fully! But personally, right now I’m all dialed in to see what happens if the pair of rainbow donks actually hit the briny on their unwaxed logs. The surf Nazis’re gonna go all return-of-Jaws berserk when they smell that kooker blood in the water.”

“Get your happy on, bro,” his partner said. “Forget the two squids. Just wax up and enjoy the gymnosophical gyrations of that slammin’ spanker.”

“Gymno…?” said the tall surfer. Then, “Dude, I hate it when you take community college classes and go all vocabu-lyrical instead of speaking everyday American English.”

Just then, the woman deputy, a tall Asian veteran with her black hair pulled into a tight bun, moved ahead of her burly young Latino partner to confront the photographer, who reluctantly stopped shooting and faced her.

“This is attracting an unruly crowd,” she said. “It’s not the time or place for a photo session of this nature on Malibu Beach. I’d like you to shut it down and take it to a more private location.”

As the deputy said this, the redhead was performing splits on the yellow surfboard that one of the male models had placed flat on the sand as a pedestal for the next flurry of shots. But when the redhead got into the splits position, she lost control of her eye patch thong, attached by a string that rode over her hips and disappeared between the cheeks of her liquid-tanned buttocks. When the eye patch got crumpled against her upper thigh, her shaved genitalia was exposed, and a cheer went up from the raucous ring of twenty young men, most of them in wet suits, now completely surrounding the photo shoot. A salvo of lascivious commentary followed as the young men pushed in closer.

“See what I mean?” said the woman deputy to the photographer. “Shut this down now.”

“About her thong,” the photographer said. “If she puts one on that’s made of wider material, will we be all right? I mean, I’ve been told that if there’s a patch over her tulips and enough material in back so that her cheeks don’t touch each other, it cannot be considered nudity on a public beach.”

The giggling redhead, seemingly aroused by the male effluvium enveloping her like funky smoke, said to her boss, “You mean it’ll make my costume legal if my cheeks don’t touch?”

And with that, she arched her back, grabbed a buttock in each hand, and spread them slightly, all the while winking at her play-surfer colleagues in rainbow suits. Both of them had declined her offer to whiff a few lines just before the photo shoot and now looked unnerved by her coke-driven behavior.

The one in the lemon-yellow wet suit whispered in her ear, “Gloria, this is not risqué, this is fucking risky. We’re surrounded by testosterone-crazed animals.”

“That’s it,” said the woman deputy as the model rearranged her thong. “You’re in violation of the law. Get off this beach and stand by our car. Do it now.”

The photographer sighed in disgust, hands on his narrow hips, and gazed up, muttering to the vast cloudless sky over Malibu and the Pacific Ocean before reluctantly saying, “Okay, kids, it’s a fucking wrap.”

“I was just getting into it!” the redhead cried, snatching a towel from a folding chair.

And though alcohol consumption was prohibited on the beach, the grungiest of the nonsurfers were hammered, and an open can of beer was thrown from the back of the crowd. It soared over the heads of the nearest surfers, striking the deputy on the back of the head just above her bun of hair, splashing beer onto her tan uniform shirt.

“Owwww!” she yelped, whirling toward the mob.

“I saw which one did it!” her partner said, barging through the ring of wet suits, running down the beach after a fleeing teen in a torn T-shirt. As a result of having sloshed down two 40s of Olde English and a six-pack of Corona, the teen tripped over an obese, snoring tourist in plaid golf pants who was tits up and turning bubblegum-pink under the late afternoon sun.

The deputy wrestled the kid to the sand, looking as though he were trying to decide whether to grab handcuffs or pepper spray, when his partner, blood droplets wetting the collar of her uniform shirt, ran up and pounced on the thrashing teen, who yelled, “I didn’t mean to hit nobody! It was just a lucky shot!”

“Unlucky for you, asshole,” the Latino deputy said.

“I can hook him up,” the woman deputy said to her partner as they grappled, “if you’ll get his goddamn arm twisted back.”

“I’m suing you!” the kid hollered. Then to the milling crowd of onlookers, “You people are witnessing police brutality! Give me your names and phone numbers!”

After their prisoner was handcuffed, they jerked him upright and started dragging him toward the parking lot.

Then another of the grungier beach creatures, in board shorts, inked-out from his neck to his knees with full-sleeve tatts on both arms and missing an incisor and two bicuspids in his upper grille, yelled, “Let him go. He didn’t do nothing. Some nigger threw the beer and ran off.”

He drunkenly slouched toward the deputies, full of booze and bravado, holding the neck of an empty beer bottle like a hammer, and the young deputy drew his Taser and pointed it at him. The female deputy immediately talked into her rover and requested backup while she kept her eyes on the increasingly rowdy mob, at the same time trying to decide which of the half dozen nonsurfing sand maggots could be a real threat.

She didn’t realize that backup was much closer than she thought, and it arrived in a violent explosion of energy that stunned everybody. The tall blond surfer and his shorter partner issued no warnings, but running full speed, the taller one surged in low like a blitzing linebacker and slammed his shoulder into the lower spine of the guy with the beer bottle, who sailed forward, back bowed, and crashed hard against two surfers, knocking both of them flat on the sand. One of the other sleazed-out beach lice in ragged jeans instantly leaped on the back of the tall surfer as he was getting to his feet and tried for a stranglehold. He let go when the shorter surfer grabbed his hair, jerked his head back, and dug three piston punches into the guy’s kidneys, which made him drop to the sand, howling louder than his wounded mate.

“Get him to your car fast!” the tall surfer yelled to the deputies.

He picked up and brandished the beer bottle, standing shoulder to shoulder with his partner, facing off the jeering gaggle of now-hesitant surfers as the deputies continued dragging their handcuffed prisoner across the warm white sand of Malibu Beach.

The remainder of the surfing crowd suddenly had to rethink the whole business after seeing the two beach rats get cranked by the dynamic duo, whoever the fuck they were. And besides, since the wicked wahini and her crew were scampering to their SUV, the sexy rush was over. They figured that pretty soon there’d be more cops.

And anyway, they’d been out of the water too long. Adrenaline started gushing and synapses snapping when they saw half a dozen other surfers digging through the breakers. The surf was peaky and a young ripper came slicing in on a hugangus juicy while other surfers hooted him on. So what the fuck were they doing on dry land dicking around with these cops anyway?

Suddenly, as though on command, they all turned and began scrambling toward the ocean like a raft of clumsy sea lions, but once in the water and on their boards, they were transformed, and they darted, sleek as otters, through the shore break, with cops and even the redhead utterly forgotten. Their only concern was not getting cut off as they paddled from break to break in waves punchy and raw, waiting for a big one because this… this was what it was all about. They had discovered the meaning of life.

After the deputies got their handcuffed prisoner strapped into the backseat of the caged patrol unit, the tall surfer and his shorter partner heard the yelp of sirens as the LASD black-and-white units came roaring into the parking lot.

“Dude, I mighta rearranged a few disks in that sand maggot’s back,” the tall surfer said to his partner. “If we don’t wanna get bogged to the ass in paperwork and lawsuits and shit, I think we should, like, fade out at this point and maybe frequent Bolsa Chica Beach for the next few weeks.”

“I hear ya, bro,” his partner said. “The sleazed-out surf rat that I nailed is gonna be pissing blood for a few days, so I ain’t ready to answer a bunch of questions about why we didn’t ID ourselves and advise them of their rights and give them all a chance to kick the shit outta the deputies and us, too. I say, let’s bounce.”

The younger, Latino deputy was busy corralling the photo crew as witnesses for his reports, and the older, female deputy was gingerly touching her injured head and scanning the growing crowd of looky-loos, but she couldn’t find the surfing pair who’d decked the beach rats. She definitely needed them for the arrest and crime reports now that they were going to book their prisoner for the felony assault on a peace officer, but the arriving backup units caused a traffic snarl and she had to direct cars out of their way. This allowed the tall blond surfer and his shorter blond partner, hiding behind the throngs of beachgoers, to slip away, collect their boards, and scurry unobserved to their pickup truck in the parking lot.

They drove off and headed for the closest In-N-Out Burger, where they each devoured two cheeseburgers and fries. They arrived at work in time for a shower, a shave, an allowable application of hair gel, and a quick change into uniforms, ready for the 5:15 P.M. midwatch roll call.

All of the other police officers at Hollywood Station referred to this team of surfer cops as Flotsam and Jetsam.

Continues...

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Excerpted from Hollywood Hills by Wambaugh, Joseph Copyright © 2011 by Wambaugh, Joseph. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

What fun it is to read Joseph Wambaugh! His Hollywood Station police procedurals—peppered with the requisite gunshots and groin kicks, sleaze and sunshine—are word-drunk wonders…Hollywood Hills doesn't offer profound insights into the evil that lurks in the human heart. Instead, this series serves up something perhaps even more welcome as the drear days of winter settle in: an absurdist take on crime, as well as plotlines and sentences that perform buoyant loop-de-loops all over the page before making flawless landings.
—The Washington Post

Maureen Corrigan

The LAPD's Hollywood Station deals with some of the strangest lawbreakers anywhere, as shown in MWA Grand Master Wambaugh's amusing fourth novel to feature Hollywood Nate Weiss, surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam, and the rest of the series' colorful police crew (after Hollywood Moon). In the main plot line, the paths of a pair of drug-addled thieves--high school dropout Jonas Claymore and his down-on-her-luck housemate, Megan Burke--converge and collide with those of snooty art dealer Nigel Wickland and sleazy part-time butler Raleigh L. Dibble with results both absurd and tragic. Meanwhile, Wambaugh diverts with smaller episodes about such odd Hollywood denizens as the Wedgie Bandit and the Goths, a couple whose dress and house channels the Addams family. Veteran police officer Della Ravelle's sage mentoring of young officer Britney Small lends some gravity to this deliciously convoluted caper. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"No writer describes the cop world's twin masks of comedy and tragedy as well as Joseph Wambaugh.... In Hollywood Hills, the fourth novel in a series that portrays the LAPD cops who work out of Hollywood Station, Wambaugh again offers dark humor, social satire, and police drama. His carefully drawn characters are colorful but utterly believable. The cops aren't super cops, but fairly ordinary, vulnerable, and imperfect human beings, which adds to their appeal.... Like Wambaugh's previous novels, Hollywood Hills is an entertaining and starkly realistic ride-along with the LAPD."

Paul Davis - Philadelphia Inquirer

"What fun it is to read Joseph Wambaugh! His Hollywood Station police procedurals - peppered with the requisite gunshots and groin kicks, sleaze and sunshine - are word-drunk wonders. If James Joyce had imagined Finnegans Wake as a crime story (hmmm, not a bad idea since plot was never Joyce's strong suit), it might have turned out something like Wambaugh's latest suspense story, Hollywood Hills....this series serves up something perhaps even more welcome as the drear days of winter settle in: an absurdist take on crime, as well as plotlines and sentences that perform buoyant loop-de-loops all over the page before making flawless landings."

Maureen Corrigan - Washington Post

"It's Joseph Wambaugh's world. Other crime writers just live in it. Beginning with his 1971 novel, The New Centurions, and his 1973 nonfiction masterpiece, The Onion Field, the former Los Angeles Police Department detective all but created the modern L.A. police procedural. Wambaugh's work chronicles the true lives of those involved in the dirty business of law and order, and has provided the foundational language, style and conventions for the countless writers who have tried, with mixed results, to follow in his footsteps. Hollywood Hills, Wambaugh's newest novel, is a cogent reminder that he remains on the beat, and as effective as ever."

Jonathan Shapiro - Los Angeles Times

"Joseph Wambaugh's Hollywood series was supposed to be a trilogy. Good news for readers that he changed his mind. His take on the Hollywood cop shop is colorful...these characters fighting crime are not to be missed. Neither are the criminals they pursue.... And in addition to stupid criminals, there are some gut-wrenching, psychologically difficult criminal interludes that remind the reader that for all the stupid wrongdoers who find their reward, there are also innocent victims, and these victims take their own kind of toll. Wambaugh mixes the light and the dark in a unique way. Hollywood Hills is a keeper.... The book should be satisfying to those familiar with the series, and a tantalizing starting point for those who are not."

Robin Vidimos - The Denver Post

"If Los Angeles police detective-sergeant-turned-author Joseph Wambaugh didn't invent the modern cop novel, he's been one of its most prolific and successful practitioners.... Dark slapstick—with rimshot dialogue worthy of Jay Leno—often ensues when these police officers cross paths with eccentric Hollywood-dwellers. But there's nothing comical about the murder and mayhem lurking behind the palm trees.... Yet one way or another these enforcers of the law—like their author—continue to get the job done."

Tom Nolan - Wall Street Journal

"good news for fans of the Hollywood Station trilogy that was supposed to have ended with Hollywood Moon. Now here comes Hollywood Hills, extending another golden opportunity to ride with the uniformed crew at what must be the most colorful cop-shop under the sun.... Wambaugh salts the narrative with variously funny, sad and thoughtful anecdotes featuring a cast of characters we've come to treasure: handsome Hollywood Nate, the surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam, and veterans like Viv Daley and Della Ravelle, burned by experience, but conscientiously training the next generation to face the fire."

Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review

No writer describes the cop world's twin masks of comedy and tragedy as well as Joseph Wambaugh.... In Hollywood Hills, the fourth novel in a series that portrays the LAPD cops who work out of Hollywood Station, Wambaugh again offers dark humor, social satire, and police drama. His carefully drawn characters are colorful but utterly believable. The cops aren't super cops, but fairly ordinary, vulnerable, and imperfect human beings, which adds to their appeal.... Like Wambaugh's previous novels, Hollywood Hills is an entertaining and starkly realistic ride-along with the LAPD.
— Philadelphia Inquirer

Paul Davis

It's Joseph Wambaugh's world. Other crime writers just live in it. Beginning with his 1971 novel, The New Centurions, and his 1973 nonfiction masterpiece, The Onion Field, the former Los Angeles Police Department detective all but created the modern L.A. police procedural. Wambaugh's work chronicles the true lives of those involved in the dirty business of law and order, and has provided the foundational language, style and conventions for the countless writers who have tried, with mixed results, to follow in his footsteps. Hollywood Hills, Wambaugh's newest novel, is a cogent reminder that he remains on the beat, and as effective as ever.
— Los Angeles Times

Jonathan Shapiro

Joseph Wambaugh's Hollywood series was supposed to be a trilogy. Good news for readers that he changed his mind. His take on the Hollywood cop shop is colorful...these characters fighting crime are not to be missed. Neither are the criminals they pursue.... And in addition to stupid criminals, there are some gut-wrenching, psychologically difficult criminal interludes that remind the reader that for all the stupid wrongdoers who find their reward, there are also innocent victims, and these victims take their own kind of toll. Wambaugh mixes the light and the dark in a unique way. Hollywood Hills is a keeper.... The book should be satisfying to those familiar with the series, and a tantalizing starting point for those who are not.
— The Denver Post

Robin Vidimos

If Los Angeles police detective-sergeant-turned-author Joseph Wambaugh didn't invent the modern cop novel, he's been one of its most prolific and successful practitioners.... Dark slapstick—with rimshot dialogue worthy of Jay Leno—often ensues when these police officers cross paths with eccentric Hollywood-dwellers. But there's nothing comical about the murder and mayhem lurking behind the palm trees.... Yet one way or another these enforcers of the law—like their author—continue to get the job done.
— Wall Street Journal

Tom Nolan

good news for fans of the Hollywood Station trilogy that was supposed to have ended with Hollywood Moon. Now here comes Hollywood Hills, extending another golden opportunity to ride with the uniformed crew at what must be the most colorful cop-shop under the sun.... Wambaugh salts the narrative with variously funny, sad and thoughtful anecdotes featuring a cast of characters we've come to treasure: handsome Hollywood Nate, the surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam, and veterans like Viv Daley and Della Ravelle, burned by experience, but conscientiously training the next generation to face the fire.
— New York Times Book Review

Marilyn Stasio

Wambaugh's Hollywood trilogy (Hollywood Moon, 2009, etc.) sprouts a fourth volume, another offbeat mix of broadly satirical comedy and a cast of cops apparently waiting for a procedural that never kicks in.

Veteran Officer "Hollywood" Nate Weiss, the only member of the LAPD with a Screen Actors Guild card, hopes that meeting second-tier director/producer Rudy Ressler might be his big break. Rudy wants Hollywood Nate to keep an eye on the art-stocked home of the late meatpacking king Sammy Brueger while Rudy's off in Tuscany with his fiancée, Benny's widow Leona, who comes on to Hollywood Nate in a way that seems likely to seal the deal. Alas, the real action at the Brueger place has nothing to do with the movies. Beverly Hills art dealer Nigel Wickland, whom Leona invited out to inspect her security measures, has decided to steal two of Sammy's prize paintings and replace them with replicas. His plan requires him to embed an accomplice, ex-con caterer-turned-butler Raleigh L. Dibble, in Leona's household while she's away, ostensibly to tend her ancient brother-in-law Marty, but actually to provide Nigel access to the house. On the other side of the tracks, high-school dropout Jonas Claymore, too strung out on OxyContin to hold his job parking cars, schemes with his long-suffering housemate Megan Burke to improve his own standard of living by breaking into the homes of the wealthy. You'd never guess which home he picks, or when. The guardians of the law who've been invited to this Hiaasen-esque carnival of criminal losers seem like outsiders, and that may be just the point. Hollywood Nate, his old buddy Snuffy Salcedo, probationary Officer Britney Small, her Field Training Officer Della Ravelle, surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam—all of them do precious little detection or investigation, but a couple of them discharge their service weapons to significant effect.

Though everything takes forever to happen, the laughs are authentic, and a couple of endearing heroes emerge. A middling entry in this waggish series.

Kirkus Reviews