This is the last book I read in 2010, and it was a good one. It's hard to mix entertaining fiction with good writing, plotting, dialogue, and realistic characters. But, much to my delight, Joseph Wambaugh does just that. I read his latest book before this one, so I am actually going backwards with this LAPD crew. I will happily read the other two in this group that he wrote before Hollywood Moon. His writing reminds me a bit of Ed McBain's, except McBain placed his policemen in a fictional city, Isola. These cops work out of LA, and since Wambaugh was a former LAPD sargeant, he knows whereof he speaks (or writes).But experience as a policeman alone is not enough. Wambaugh writes well. I remember reading The Choirboys and The Onion Field years ago. I'm glad he's writing again.