The New Centurions (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 1970; vuoden 1972 painos)

As cop writers go, Joseph Wambaugh is as good as they come. Many say he is the best, and I won't argue with them. Any fan of cop stories should buy Wambaugh's books without hesitation. Even I like Joseph Wambaugh's novels, and I hate cops. ( )

This is an excellent police novel by the master of police novels.

This novel follows an officer from police training to being out on the street and riding with his veteran partner.

As with many of Wambaugh's books, the novel is hilarious, serious, daring and heartbreaking.

This novel was made into a movie with Stacy Keach and the great George C. Scott. A wonderful movie that captures the novel well.

Highly recommended. ( )

I remarked to my husband as I was reading that this, The Choirboys and The Blue Knight should all be required reading for all law enforcement officers, especially metropolitan ones. Once again Wambaugh provides such an interesting and believable portrait of life as a cop in decades ago LA. While this is going on 40 plus years since the first publication, it could just as well have been set in this century as well as this decade. While I’m sure it’s was shocking in 1970, it’s just as much sobering in 2012 in that we’re forced to see that some things never really change. Without a doubt Wambaugh remains the master of portraying big city policing, the funny, the sad and the reality of life as a cop. ( )

"En Los nuevos centuriones Joseph Wambaugh nos presenta los cinco años de complejo aprendizaje de tres policías de Los Ángeles durante la década de los sesenta. En este tiempo, investigan robos y persiguen a prostitutas, sofocan guerras entre bandas y apaciguan riñas familiares. Pero también descubren que, a pesar de coincidir en una base autoritaria, sus puntos de vista divergen en la necesidad de cada uno de rozar el mal y el desorden."
(edit. promo.)

Una especie de Canción Triste de Hill Street en la que se persiguen crímenes como la prostitución, el visionado de pelis porno o el ejercicio sexual de la homosexualidad.

Parece que Wambaugh tuvo bastantes pollos con compañeros del cuerpo que se reconocieron en esta obra.

La curiosidad: este libro lo pillé en una librería especializada en cómics (Joker) No me pregunten por qué lo pillé (al final, como es un poco en plan coral lo he ido leyendo en plan fascículos a lo largo del año cada vez que pasaba por el baserri) ni qué hacía allí (el libro, no yo). ( )

"The New Centurions" is Joseph Wambaugh's first foray into fiction novels. Prior to the publication of this book, Wambaugh had been known solely as a true crime author of such works as "The Onion Field." And who would expect anything less? He was a bonafide L.A. PD police officer and detective, and one of the cardinal commandments of authorship is "write what you know." So at the time, "Centurions" was a substantial departure from his previous works. And honestly, it shows.

The main problem with the book is that there is no plot. The story follows three L.A. PD officers from the same academy class over the course of their careers. Each section of the novel is divided into three separate chapters, one for each of the officers, and each section covers one year. As time goes on they develop from academy cadets to seasoned officers, eventually coming back together in the chaos of the infamous Watts riots. But other than that, there's not much of a plot to hold the story together. Consequently the action meanders.

I suppose you could say that "Centurions" is an over-sized character study. Wambaugh takes great pains to illustrate the gradual development of each officer, their fears and insecurities and foibles. He really does a great job of it, and he makes it an entertaining book because of that. The law enforcement anecdotes by themselves were worth the price of admission (so to speak), and Wambaugh's skill at characterization was what kept me reading. But well-developed characters alone do not a successful novel make. It's a major facet, of course, but there needs to be something more. Mainly a plot. And the internal ansgt of a trio of insecure characters doesn't fit the bill.

If there had been an overarching plot to the story, this book would have gotten more than three stars from me. And that's not to say that "Centurions" isn't entertaining or enjoyable or any number of positive epithets. To be sure, Wambaugh is good at what he does, but "The New Centurions" has the after taste of an angsty faction vignette on the topic of "emotion." The tools are all there for one hell of a police procedural tale, and indeed, in later works Wambaugh is able to put them together quite successfully. It's just that, like many writers, he falls short of that achievement in his earlier work. ( )