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THE DELTA STAR by Joseph Wambaugh

THE DELTA STAR

by Joseph Wambaugh

Pub Date: March 4th, 1982
ISBN: 0553273868
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

What could possibly be the connection between the 1981 Soviet-sub-in-Sweden crisis (the prologue here) and the cops of the L.A.P.D.'s Rampart Station? That's the puzzle in the background that holds together, more or less, Wambaugh's latest, loosest grabbag of gross cop behavior, morgue slapstick, moody sleuthing, and black-comic misery. As usual, much time is spent in a cop hangout: this time it's Leery's Saloon, a.k.a. The House of Misery—where the "Bad Czech" (a dangerously yet lovably disturbed cop) delivers diatribes against Jerry Brown and others; where a cop near retirement counts the hours, terrified that something will go wrong; where the boozing and boogaloo-ing (with cop-groupies or Amazonian policewoman "Jane Wayne") is frantic; and where, most hilariously/disgustingly, the K-9 corps indulges too—in beer and sex-fantasies. But, while previous Wambaughs tended to center around the serious, alcoholic unhappiness of one or two characters, here the central cop—rather bland Detective Marie Villalobos—is only mildly depressed; and the prime off-and-on focus is instead on his murder investigation, the one that'll eventually link up to that USSR-sub affair. The murder victim: prostitute Missy Moonbeam. . . who, it seems, was somehow involved with a science-groupie pimp and a scientist from Caltech. (Among the leads: info from Missy's hysterical homosexual chum—and a stolen American Express card which the Bad Czech just happens to pick up by mistake in a Chinese restaurant.) So Villalobos and the Bad Czech are soon sleuthing on campus—with wildly funny culture clashes and the gradual exposure of a plan to influence, via blackmail, a Nobel Prize decision (already affected, you see, by the strained Sweden/USSR relations). Still, though Wambaugh's mystery-plot is more than serviceable, it's merely a frame for the glimpses of cop-misery (less effective than usual) and the ugly/goofy vignettes, which sometimes make The Hill Street Blues look like Heidi. (E.g., the Bad Czech's attempts to lynch a bum or pump all the blood out of a wounded suspect.) So, even more than before, it's hold on to your stomachs, forget about traditional police-novel satisfactions—and enjoy (if that's the word) Wambaugh's gritty, ghoulish flights of almost-fancy as a freeform side-show: sorely uneven, but undeniably vivid and occasionally inspired.