Despite being a big crime/mystery fan, I’m not really into the scores of police procedural novels or dozens of TV shows that litter the networks theseDespite being a big crime/mystery fan, I’m not really into the scores of police procedural novels or dozens of TV shows that litter the networks these days. For me, all of these stories try to portray the various kinds of cops as politically correct robots who go about their jobs with a kind of determined detachment except for maybe the occasional bit of angst to add a little faux drama to the mix.
To get me interested in a cop story these days, it has to be some kind of ultra-realistic look at the bureaucratic nightmare of real police work like The Wire. Or be an epic tragedy with corrupt characters like The Shield. Or have some kind of offbeat protagonist that interests me like Raylan Givens on Justified. But show me those soulless pretty people tracking serial killers by getting their DNA tests done in three minutes on a CSI show and my eyes glaze over.
Joseph Wambaugh worked the LAPD in the 1960s-70s, and during an era when cops were almost invariably portrayed as square jawed heroes, he wrote novels that dared to show the police as very flawed, damaged and relatable human beings. For my money, probably his best work along those lines was The Choirboys.
The book begins with the LAPD brass in an uproar about a potential scandal involving a killing during a ‘choir practice’. As they try to figure out a way to spin the story and minimize the damage, we get the impression that a bunch of police officers went on a drunken rampage and somebody died as a result.
Wambaugh then shifts through the events leading up to the death by following 5 pairs of uniformed police officers working out of LA’s Wilshire division. There’s the tough veteran ‘Spermwhale’ Whalen about to get his 20 years in. Baxter Slate is a former classics student haunted by a disastrous tour working Juveniles. ‘Roscoe’ Rules is a racist moron with knack for taking the most routine calls and turning them into riots. Sam Niles has been stuck with his annoying partner and supposed best friend, Harold, since they were in Vietnam together. Spencer is a clothes horse who works his ‘police discount’ to buy high end retail stuff at wholesale prices. The rest of the so-called choir boys are also a collection of misfits with disastrous personal lives.
The cops engage in what they call choir practice where they go to MacArthur Park with cases of booze they’ve mooched from liquor store owners, and then they proceed to get totally pants-shitting howl-at-the-moon drunk while gang banging a pair of police groupies.
Doesn’t make them sound very appealing, does it?
What Wambaugh shows is that these choir practices are usually the direct result of the horrible things the cops routinely have to deal with while constantly being harassed by their bosses for violations of petty rules while ignoring the emotional well-being of the officers. The worst part of it is that while the choirboys are routinely abused while dealing with parade of ignorant lowlifes and see the worst that people can do to themselves and each other, it’s all so achingly common place that they can’t muster more than slight contempt and dark humor. Until they see something so horrible that they call for a choir practice to block it out with booze and meaningless sex.
The intellectual Baxter puts Wambaugh’s theme into words while giving a drunken lecture during a choir practice:
I mean that the weakness of the human race is stupefying and that it’s not the capacity for evil which astounds young policemen like you and me. Rather it’s the mind boggling worthlessness of human beings. There’s not enough dignity in mankind for evil and that’s the most terrifying thing a policeman learns.”
What keeps this book from being just a depressing look into the abyss is that it’s black cop humor is constant. There’s almost nothing that happens that can’t be made into sick humor and there’s no asshole boss so irritating that he can’t be the victim of an ingenious prank for revenge. It’s crude and socially unacceptable, but it’s really damn funny, too.
Rereading this in 2011, I could only imagine the howls of outrage if something like the choirboys became a media scandal. A gang of drunken cops abusing their badges to score free liquor for binge drinking and pulling trains on a couple of cocktail waitresses in a public park would get a whole lot of people fired these days, but the great thing about Wambaugh is the way he convinces you that that the choirboys were usually good cops deserving of respect and sympathy....more
As a Chuck Palahniuk fan, I was disappointed. It's got all the usual elements of a Chuck P. novel. Dark humor, gross material, oddball characters, andAs a Chuck Palahniuk fan, I was disappointed. It's got all the usual elements of a Chuck P. novel. Dark humor, gross material, oddball characters, and plenty of plot twists, but it's a let down after the superior Haunted and Rant.
It's very short. In fact, a shorter version might have made a great story in Haunted. And after the mind bending sci-fi of Rant, it seems like a far less ambitious novel. It's not bad, but it reads like something that Palahniuk did as a side project while working on something bigger and better.
Save your money and get it from the library or wait for the paperback. Fans of Chuck will find it worth reading, but it's not worth the full hardback price at less than 200 pages....more
Hap and Leonard go south of the border, and there hasn’t been a trip to Mexico end this badly since The Wild Bunch. As Warren Zevon once sang, they'llHap and Leonard go south of the border, and there hasn’t been a trip to Mexico end this badly since The Wild Bunch. As Warren Zevon once sang, they'll need lawyers, guns, and money to get out of this fix.
The guys have new careers as security guards at the local chicken processing plant. As Hap is leaving work one night he breaks up an attack on a young woman by a drug crazed maniac. (The fight scene is Lansdale at his best. I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream as I read it.) Usually good deeds don't go unpunished, but this time Hap is actually rewarded for his heroics with some cash and time off work so he decides to treat Leonard to a sea cruise.
Unfortunately, with their usual knack for trouble, things go badly at one of the cruise stops in Mexico, and they end up as the victims of a machete wielding gang of muggers. And since Hap & Leonard can always make a bad situation worse, they find a way to get thrown in a Mexican jail. They get out with a little help from their friends, and for once, they try to do the smart thing and return to the U.S. without getting further involved. But trouble follows them home and costs them dearly.
This was the last Hap and Leonard novel that Lansdale wrote for 8 years until the publication of Vanilla Ride, and it feels like he may have been a bit burnt out on the series. While there’s always been a bit of a melancholy tone to the H&L books, this one has several elements that are more depressing that the other ones. The humor is still there, but the guys seem worn out and sick of getting pulled into their violent adventures. Lansdale would write a lot of very good books during the break he took from Hap and Leonard, and the two would return refreshed and lively again in the next one so that makes me feel better about Captains Outrageous because I thought for years that it may have been the end of the series.
On a trivia note: Crime fiction fans might recognize the character of the lawyer Veil as Lansdale’s tribute to his friend and fellow crime writer Andrew Vachss. It’s a fun little cameo. You gotta love a lawyer with an eye patch. ...more
Hap Collins and his friend Leonard Pine seem like pure east Texas rednecks in a lot of ways. They have crappy jobs working in rose fields, shoot clay Hap Collins and his friend Leonard Pine seem like pure east Texas rednecks in a lot of ways. They have crappy jobs working in rose fields, shoot clay pigeons with their shotguns, drive worn out piece-of-shit vehicles, raise hunting dogs and listen to country music. But Leonard is black and gay, and Hap is a former damn dirty hippie who got sent to prison for refusing his induction notice during Vietnam as a protest against the war. So they aren’t exactly the Dukes of Hazard.
Years after his prison stay ended his marriage, Hap’s ex-wife Trudy still likes to come around regularly to break his heart all over again. Trudy is another former flower child who still thinks she can change the world while Hap’s time in prison took care of all his idealistic notions. When Trudy shows up again, she’s got a new proposal for Hap.
Trudy and some other old damn dirty hippies have gotten a lead on a lot of cash from a bank robbery that was believed lost. They think it’s in a sunken boat in an remote river area that Hap grew up in. Trudy wants Hap’s help, and Hap insists on cutting Leonard in, too. But both have second thoughts when they meet the old radicals they’ll be working with. Still convinced that they can revive the spirit of the ‘60s, they want the money for their pet causes while Hap and Leonard just want to be able to stop working in the rose fields.
Joe Lansdale is one of the funniest guys I’ve ever read, and he really knows about rural living and the redneck lifestyle. Every time I read one of his books, I feel like I’m sitting on a front porch in my old hometown while listening to some entertaining story teller spin a yarn about the trouble that some idiot good old boys got themselves into. The series is profane, politically incorrect, violent, and hilarious. Lansdale created a couple of my all-time favorite characters in Hap and Leonard. ...more
When Hap goes to spend Christmas Eve with his friend Leonard, he finds that Leonard’s idea of a Yule log is burning down the neighborhood crack house.When Hap goes to spend Christmas Eve with his friend Leonard, he finds that Leonard’s idea of a Yule log is burning down the neighborhood crack house. Since this is the third time Leonard has torched it, the cops are a little miffed even though he always pulls the drug dealers out of the fire. Police lieutenant Hanson offers to help get Leonard off the hook for his pyromania if the guys will look for his girlfriend, Florida, who has gone missing while poking around the story of the relative of a legendary bluesman who allegedly committed suicide while in jail.
There’s a couple of problems with this request. Florida disappeared in Grovetown, a racist hotbed of Klan-like activity that probably didn’t like a black female lawyer looking into what seems to be a classic civil rights violation. Grovetown surely won’t appreciate a guy like Leonard, who is black and gay and more than willing to fight anyone who has a problem with it. Plus, Florida dated Hap before breaking his heart to take up with Hanson so he isn’t thrilled about potentially getting killed while looking for her.
But Hap and Leonard never saw a bucket of crap they wouldn’t willingly step into so they’re off to Grovetown, which turns out to be the biggest cracker hellhole imaginable. Hap and Leonard are tough, but can they take on an entire town?
Another great entry in the Hap & Leonard series, Lansdale started to really explore the guys’ complex relationship to violence. Hap and Leonard aren’t scared of a fight and can usually hold their own, but their adventures are starting to take a serious toll on their bodies and their psyches. Lansdale has a knack for making violence and its aftermath seem genuine and horrifying while not getting bogged down in faux angst about it. ...more
This book features the pistol whipping of a little person, the rescue of an armadillo from a gun dealer, a fight in a whore house, the amputation of aThis book features the pistol whipping of a little person, the rescue of an armadillo from a gun dealer, a fight in a whore house, the amputation of a foot via shotgun, redneck pimps, arguments caused by dirty underwear, prairie dogs being sucked out of their holes by a glorified vacuum cleaner and a really good steak ranchero.
Yep. It’s another Joe Lansdale novel.
Hap’s girlfriend Brett is contacted by a couple of murderous pimps from Oklahoma who claim that her daughter, a prostitute, is in trouble. Hap volunteers to help Brett find her, and Leonard reluctantly comes along to watch their backs. Hap hopes to locate and grab Brett’s daughter before any big trouble can get started, but as usual, when Hap and Leonard try to do a good deed things get bloody in a hurry.
This is one of the more violent entries in the series, and it kicked off a depressing tone that would last through the next book. Lansdale always showed the cost of violence on Hap and Leonard, but this is one adventure that takes a serious toll on the guys. ...more
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