Guardians of the Night (A Gideon and Sirius Novel)
CUSTOMER REVIEW
I couldn't help but compare this book to Hilary Waugh's ground-breaking police procedurals. Set in small-town America in the 1950's, they always featured a gruff, battle-hardened Chief of Police. The Chief ruled with an iron fist and a cop who screwed up or a reporter who stepped over the line got his ass kicked. There was no public relations department and a cop who could read and write was derisively called "College Boy." The cops were the good guys and the criminals weren't.
In Russell's 21th Century Los Angeles, the Chief of Police is a smooth-talking former academician given to solemn lectures. When his subordinates break rules, he's "disappointed." A cop without a degree in Criminal Justice wouldn't be allowed to empty the trash baskets. The PR department is the tail that wags the dog because the real enemy isn't criminals, but the all-powerful media that molds public opinion.
Detective Michael Gideon has a good cop's confidence, instincts, and waggish sense of humor. He has a few loyal friends and makes enemies effortlessly. He became a local hero when he and his police dog Sirius captured a serial killer. The aftermath failed to live up to its promising beginning. Gideon was left with deep physical and emotional scars and the charismatic murderer is now a hero to many. Gideon is now assigned to "special cases" where he and Sirius can work alone. A widower, he's currently involved with a nice woman who has her own life and seems to expect little of him. Just as well, since he doesn't have much to give.
In Venice Beach ("L.A.'s Freakshow") a homeless man called "Wrong" witnesses a murder in an alley. A "being of light" is somehow destroyed. Wrong is convinced that an angel has been killed and he sobers up and stays sober so that he can tell his story and be believed. The author tells us a lot about Wrong, seemingly using the character to say that we shouldn't dismiss the homeless as worthless, that they're the same as the rest of us. With his intelligence, humility, and decency, Wrong is a damned sight better than most of us. He's not far from being an angel himself and soon after he tells his story, his time on earth abruptly ends.
The death of a delusional wino is unimportant enough to be turned over Gideon, who's impressed with Wrong's personality and even more by the fact that all of the neighborhood surveillance cameras have been blocked to keep them from recording the event. The trail leads to the high-profile owner of a company that makes drones and has connections with "black ops" military types. He's a man whose hubris puts him on a collision course with the rest of the world.
I enjoyed this book. It's not great, but it's very good. This author writes well enough not to have to depend on the violence that keeps me from reading most modern mysteries. Sadly, he can't avoid the wordiness. When a tightly crafted book of 180 pages could find a publisher, mysteries had a spare elegance. Now they must be door-stop size to justify the price and that means filler. It's interesting filler, because Russell is a skilful writer and a man of wide interests and knowledge, but it's still filler.
If you're a dog lover, you'll love this book. The bond of humans with dogs (police dogs, military dogs, and plain-old dogs) is an integral part of the story. Sometimes he's a bit heavy-handed and explains things that the reader could figure out for himself. but every time you think you've caught him in a cliche, he twists things around so that it's not a cliche after all. It's well-plotted and well-written with unusual characters and thought-provoking themes. That's all I ask for.
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