The New Centurions Book

Good solid dramatic police fiction. Joseph Wambaugh's debut novel and one of his best. We follow three L.A.P.D. officers for five years (1960-1965) joining them as they are entering the academy and following them up to and through the riots in the Watts area of Los Angeles in 1965.

My father was a career police officer for twenty-four years. I grew up during the seventies and Wambaugh's books could always be found in our house. Like many other cops (and non police as well) during that time period my father loved his work. Before Wambaugh (usually) the American police officer was portrayed in fiction as either a complete and total criminal using his badge for personal gain (not to mention lazy and fat) or the police officer was a piece of granite. Not prey to the normal weaknesses and fears of everyone else.Incorruptible, pure, routinely brave, fit and trim and a workaholic (See Sgt. Joe Friday).

There were exceptions to this of course, but they were few and far between. Also ,by the late sixties, changes to this formula were beginning to appear more frequently. But for the most part things were set and comfortable. Then in 1970 along comes Joseph Wambaugh with The New Centurions and the whole structure gets turned over.

To begin with Wambugh was a officer with the Los Angeles Police Department (1960-1974) when The New Centurions came out. His work had a legitimacy that others lacked for he knew what he was writing about. I've been a police officer for twelve years and I can testify that there is a grit in his details that can only come from having been a cop for many years. The way he describes the residences, the smells and sounds and overall behavior of people - both the police and the citizenry. There is a ring of truth that no amount of research can capture. It comes out in this book and readers responded to it. This was something unusual.

Second Wambaugh wrote about three ordinary police officers. These officers were not Joe Friday or Frank Bullitt. They can be brave, conscientious and competent, but there are times when they are lazy, cowardly, self-centered and abuse their positions. Sometimes all within the space of a few hours or days. The three protagonists are not always very likable, but then there are times that the reader does find themselves rooting for them. In other words just like real life.

Third there is no central, dominating villain that the three protagonists have to take on and bring down. No witness to protect from "The Syndicate", no crazed serial killer stalking the streets of L.A., no gang of brilliant robbers that they have to match wits with. Instead the three officers deal with situations that are all to real. Situations involving squalor, pathos, bizarre behavior, boredom, fear, humor, tragedy and very little gun-play. The novel is very episodic (some more effective than others), but this is also police work.

I work a twelve hour shift and in the space of one shift or my entire work week (4x12hr shifts) I will sometimes deal with dozens of calls - usually each one very different from another. I've never been in a gunfight though I have had to tussle with more then a few suspects over the years. For example I can't count how many times I've responded to barking dog complaints, shoplifters in custody and missing children calls, but I have yet to encounter a Neil Macauley (Heat).

The New Centurions shows this aspect of police work. Though it is now over forty years old nothing has changed. Okay that's not entirely true. There have been changes. But the basics remain the same. I have to admit that I don't care for much of Wambaugh's books, but this one is on the mark.