Monday, April 29, 2013

Book Review: Hot Pursuit by Paul Bishop

I'd downloaded this book perhaps a year ago, but never got around to it until earlier this month, and now I'm sorry I waited so long. Paul Bishop is, according to his Amazon product description...

"A thirty-five year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, Paul has twice been honored as Detective of the Year. Aside from his numerous novels, he has written scripts for episodic televison and feature films. As a nationally recognized interrogator, he appears regularly on the hit ABC reality series Take The Money And Run."

So if anyone knows how to write a novel about LAPD cops, it should be this guy. Now, I'm not a big fan of police procedural books, or stories about cops in general. There's no particular reason, it just doesn't whet my whistle the way other stories can. However this is definitely not a typical cop story, nor are Calico Jack Walker and his partner Tina Tamiko typical cops. The Amazon product description covers it all nicely:

"It’s 1977 and veteran L.A.P.D. cop Calico Jack Walker and his rookie partner, Tina Tamiko, are planning to make Calico’s last shift on the job something special – but plans, as they do, come apart because Walker and Tamiko are good cops no matter what the cost . . . even if they're L.A. cops, in uniform, in their patrol car, on duty, and way out of their jurisdiction on the Las Vegas Strip.

When a major crime is going down, good cops never hesitate."

HOT PURSUIT involves the following elements that definitely make for an exciting story:

- Guns
- Fast cars
- Bull Riding
- Port-A-Potty Shenanigans 
- An Enormous Crazy Man-Child
- Prison Assassins
- Vegas, Baby!
- Biker Gangs
- Crazy Ex-Wives
- FIRE! YEAH! FIRE!

Pick up HOT PURSUIT and give it a read. It's set in the late 70's, which gives the story a bit of a twist if you're not expecting it, but the period nature of the novel doesn't detract in any way from the storyline. It's a fast read and definitely a page-turner, without a lot of expository padding or laborious side quests that take away from the heart of the plotline.

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