Publishers Weekly
Granted "unfettered access" to one of the LAPD's investigative units, Homicide Special, Los Angeles Times crime reporter Corwin (The Killing Season; And Still We Rise) shadowed several veteran detectives during 2001 and 2002. While not recounting every homicide case he observed, the author vividly renders a handful that exemplify the range of entrenched social fissures and seedy criminality that have long defined Los Angeles. From its ethnic underbelly to the unnoticed fringes of Hollywood fame, the investigations include the murders of a struggling screenwriter and a daughter of a former Las Vegas mobster; a Japanese mother and daughter found bound together and floating in a marina weeks after their deaths; a beautiful immigrant prostitute with complicated connections to the Russian mafia; a teenage girl killed 38 years ago-a "cold case" that was reopened by a pair of devoted detectives; and Bonny Lee Bakley, wife of actor Robert Blake, whose bloody death became chum for a tabloid feeding frenzy. With a touch of Chandleresque panache, Corwin's true crime reads like vintage noir, delivering taut dialogue sprinkled with off-color wisecracks and lyrical passages describing horizons "veiled by a tawny band of smog" or harbors filled with the "thrumming of boat engines and the squall of gulls." But unlike the ham-and-eggs detectives of Chandler's era, these latter-day California cops (the unit worked on the O.J. Simpson case) wear fancy suits purchased in Thailand, moonlight as sous-chefs and munch on "pumpkinseed-crusted three-cheese chile rellenos with papaya salsa." (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Los Angeles Times reporter Corwin spent a year with the Homicide Special unit of the LAPD post-O.J. and here does a commendable job of providing "you are there" narration of his experience. To the credit of the unit (and the department), it is apparent that Corwin was granted unfettered access. While clearly the unit has come a long way since the debacle of the O.J. Simpson investigation, the mind-numbing bureaucracy-lab work routinely takes months, even years-illustrates the need for more improvement. Corwin covers a handful of cases (including the shamelessly premature initial investigation of the murder of Bonny Lee Bakley, wife of actor Robert Blake). The cases are interspersed with a history of the region and the LAPD, and Corwin does a good job of describing the meticulous, tedious, and seemingly glacial nature of police work. Unfortunately, the book falls short when he turns to personalizing the detectives, reading too much like a script. Recommended for large true-crime collections and especially useful for readers considering a career in law enforcement.-Karen Sandlin Silverman, CFAR-Ctr. for Applied Research, Philadelphia Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A literate, unfailingly interesting work of true crime by a veteran of the genre, picking up where his The Killing Season (1997) left off. Those readers who were glued to the set during the long, tawdry trial of O.J. Simpson will be forgiven for thinking the LAPD's detective division to be a nest of incompetents, Corwin allows. Homicide Special's "maladroit investigation" and Simpson's acquittal were low spots in an already hit-or-miss record. But, almost as soon as Simpson went free, the division was overhauled, with most of its staff forced into retirement or transferred. In their place came the elegantly dressed, multilingual, sophisticated cops (one lieutenant a former chef, another officer a former sales executive, and so on) who figure in Corwin's recounting of half a dozen grisly cases as they slowly unfold. One is the murder of a Ukrainian prostitute, which affords an intriguing glimpse into the seedy world of the Russian mafia, with an array of suspects: ". . . looking like a caricature," Corwin writes, one of them "wears a gray leather jacket, a gold Gucci belt, and a garish pink, black, and white silk shirt." Another, a poorly staged suicide involving a Viagra-popping, toupee-wearing would-be stud and his unfortunate girlfriend, offers a fine glimpse into good cop-bad cop procedure ("The sympathetic approach is the best way," one weary cop remarks, though toughness clearly works, too). Still another-and Corwin's one big nod to the noirish possibilities of Hollywood-draws on recent headlines to recount the unit's investigation of B-grade actor Robert Blake, whose thoroughly unlikable wife conveniently ended up with a bullet in her head as Blake ducked into a restaurant toretrieve his own gun: a strange matter indeed, one in which nothing made sense until the dogged detectives turned up the hard evidence that had eluded them in that earlier celebrity case. A revealing look at the real, deeply unpleasant work of murder investigators. Agent: Barney Karpfinger
