Serge Duran, Gus Plebesly, and Roy Fehler are classmates at the police academy and take to the streets after graduation. But will being police officers be as they thought?The New Centurions follows the lives of three young men for five years, starting from their police academy days and into the Watts riots of 1965. I was expecting a simple cop story but got so much more.Joseph Wambaugh was a cop before he was a writer and it shows. Both the cops and the people they encounter are three dimensional. Duran struggles with his Mexican heritage. Plebesly deals with being a coward. And Fehler's an asshole until something happens to change his point of view. All three men go through considerable changes after their academy days. People fall in love, have kids, get divorced, have drinking problems, it's all there.The New Centurions deals a lot with how the police view the people they're protecting and vice versa. Rather than portray the police as heartless fascists or white knights, they all have their flaws.I can't really get into specifics of the plot because there isn't one. The chapters alternate between the three leads in different stages of their careers, showing their triumphs and failures, leading up to the aftermath of the Watts riots. While I've got it shelved as a crime book, it's more like a character study. There's a fair amount of dark humor as well.The New Centurions is highly recommended. Give it read if you want a story about cops being cops.
This is the first book written by Joseph Wambaugh and it must count as one of the first of the "police procedurals" as we understand them today. Written by Wambaugh in the late 60's when he was a young policeman, it is free of any and all of the political correctness and tolerance taken for granted now by most of us; poor African Americans, Latinos, gay men, lesbian women are dangerous animals, criminal deviants and the game of the hunter, namely, the “paddy blue eyed motherfu….ers.” In Wambaugh’s eyes his three protagonists are vulnerable, well-intended soldiers just trying to survive the random terrors of police work and make retirement, set just before the Watts riots in Los Angeles. The book’s value lies more in its honest testimony about the cop life and less in plot and character development. It's worth reading for the tabula raza it presents before everything changed for better and for worse.
What do You think about The New Centurions (1987)?
Muy buen libro. Cuenta los primeros cinco años de servicio de tres oficiales de la policía de los Ángeles en los primeros años sesenta. La estructura es episódica, pero desgrana los capítulos a un ritmo vivo que facilita la lectura. El estilo narrativo recuerda a James Ellroy, quien advierte desde la solapa del libro que las novelas de Wambaugh le han influido enormemente. Si en sus otros libros el autor sustituye la concatenación de episodios por una trama bien urdida puede ser de lo mejorcito del género negro.
—Nacho
The New Centurions, was one of three full-length fictional works Wambaugh wrote while still working in law enforcement in the 1960s; it follows three young men through their police training and early years on the LAPD force, with their fifth year of service coinciding with the historic Watts (California) race riots of Summer, 1965. The novel, in which Wambaugh narrates almost equal parts promise, resignation, and tragedy, is a good example of police during a pervious era. The use of adult language and graphic crime situations (particularly in those scenes where officers work plainclothes vice details) allows Wambaugh to present a level of realism that is seldom achieved. It pictures day-to-day police work in a large U.S. city in the mid-20th century, an era when respect for diversity was sadly, sorely lacking but soon to become an essential part of police training. It was both an interesting and exciting read.
—James
Intense! That's my single word sum-up of this novel. Following three rookie L.A. police officers from 1960 through the Watts Riots, it is brutally honest about attitudes toward race. It also shines a light on L.A. neighborhoods that very few people, outside of those neighborhoods, know anything about. It's the small details that make this book so compelling, as the officers patrol the Hollenbeck, Central and Hollywood Divisions. Of great interest to me were the bits and pieces on Boyle Heights, one of L.A.'s most historically fascinating neighborhoods. Wambaugh was an L.A. police officer for fourteen years, starting in 1960, and his powers of observation are enviable. He is truthful and unapologetic, and compassionate at the same time. His ability to create sympathy for all sides, or if not sympathy, at least a glimmer of understanding, reveals a writer of exceptional talent.
—Kim Fay
