THE DESPERATE ADVERSARIES

At 2310 hours the computer squared the cards in the tray and fed them singly into the slot marked REVIEW. Within 320 milliseconds (one per ms. page), a punched tongue sped out. Its tiny rectangular holes bore a legend easily read by a trained observer: NARK NOVEL, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT PROCEDURAL, TOP DOPE BUST, TEXAS-L.A. CONNECTIONS JAILED: PERFECT REPRO ROBIN MOORE PRINTOUT (AD1971) SUBDIVISION DRAGNET TV PSEUDODOCUMENTARY MODEL (AD1953JACKWEBB) PRIME MODEL DEFOE JOURNAL OF PLAGUE YEAR (AD1722). The Desperate Adversaries uses the notebook timetable mode to develop an eighteen-month, hood-by-hood investigation by the LAPD into the death of an undercover detective, from a minor dealer up the heroin-coke supply hierarchy until several Mr. Bigs are revealed to be a couple of Korean war vets, a shady lawyer and a handsome smoothie, with every echelon of the drug operation detailed. Hoffenberg attempts to give fleshly credence to his main characters with fairly complete biographies interpolated into the action--but his narks and hoods defiantly resist such vitalization. Big as a Douglas pine and all pulp.