I'm less than 40 pages from the end of Joseph Wambaugh's Hollywood Station and I'm stopping. There. What a relief. It has to have been at least 100 pages since I gave a damn about any of the characters or what they were doing.
I had read some Wampaugh decades ago, and this one was blurbed to be a "blisteringly funny police pocedral." So I read it. Now remember that I have police procedral expertise, having during the past 2 years read my way through the 50 plus 87th precinct novels. Surely that's enough background for me to say--loudly and clearly--"Joseph Wampaugh, you may wander about in the arena of police prodedure, but, truth be known, you are no Ed McBain."
