A good solid piece of police fiction and is arguably one of Joseph Wambaugh's most famous works. Bumper Morgan is a career L.A.P.D. police officer. A twenty-year man who has never done anything, but work patrol. While over-invested in his work ,and not above taking free meals from restaurants in his patrol area, he is also an honest cop (he sees the meals as being something that the owners want to do for him. He isn't given the meals in exchange for breaking the law. For Morgan there isn't any corruption and he does like to eat). He does his job. Conservative (with a small c), World War II veteran (so many officers were up until the mid to late seventies), and self-taught. Bumper isn't a sophisticated man, but he isn't ignorant either. He's pragmatic, slightly cynical,likable and believes in his job even though he knows that he and his fellow officers have an almost impossible task. The story covers the last three days of Bumper's career and it is a first person narrative. It moves rapidly and is almost stream of consciousness in how it flows. Though written over forty years ago there is much about Bumper and the fictional portrayal of his profession that still rings true in 2013. The technology has changed, but not people or the messes that they create. Wambaugh has never made his officers cardboard cut-outs. His officers are not of the Jack Webb school and I appreciate that. The fact that flawed Human beings still manage to do the work says more about them than the squeaky-clean caricatures that you see in "Adam-12" and "Dragnet". Bumper Morgan is flawed, but he's out there doing the work. Many don't appreciate him ,or like him, but he's still doing the job. All in all a good novel. At times Wambaugh relies on stereotypes and cliches and the shocking ending really isn't all that shocking. I wasn't surprised by the ending and ,actually, I expected it. However that's okay. Call it the work of new and still inexperienced author, but one with ability.Bumper Morgan isn't a "complicated" character with unexplored depths. Ultimately he's just a Blue Knight which means a Human being wearing a somewhat tarnished suit of armor, but he's still wearing it.I'll give it three stars. Worth reading if you're interested, but don't expect car chases, gun-battles and thrills and chills. Bumper Morgan is a police officer doing police work not a Hollywood stunt man.
