One Police Plaza by William J. Caunitz
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"[...] was down on one knee putting a new clip into his weapon when a spray of slugs tore into his body. His Uzi clammered to the ground. The last thing he saw before he slumped over was his right eye dangling out of its socket, held by a twisted white cord."

I don't have time to conduct a thorough analysis of the crime novels that I have read and determine the percentage of books that start well but then degenerate into an idiotic, ludicrous mess at the end, "enlivened" by a shootout or a massacre that produces geysers of blood, intestines popping out to see the light of day, arms and legs twitching after being separated from the body, eyeballs hanging by a thread, and other yummy cinematic images. I would guess that about 50% of crime novels follow this path.

One Police Plaza by William Caunitz (1984) is a well-known book, the so-called "national bestseller", set up in New York's Fifth Precinct. The beginning is intriguing and captivating. Lieutenant Malone is called to the precinct on his day off because his people caught a homicide that "could be a problem." The deceased is a priest and a transvestite prostitute was with him when he died. Malone "smoothes" the case for the priest's superiors. But this is just a "false start" of the plot, designed to show the pervasive corruption, where paybacks for favors replace the search for truth. I appreciate these layers of the novel; Mr. Caunitz, as an actual detective lieutenant in the New York City Police Department, knows well what he is writing about.

The main plot begins with discovery of a woman's body in a bathtub, in advanced stages of decay. The author titillates the readers by providing gross details of the physical decomposition of human body after death. I really don't mind gore as long as it is not gratuitous. Obviously not the case here.

The woman is an Israeli and connections with CIA are suspected. The author offers the readers another yummy bit: cops are watching an orgy through binoculars. Malone gets a clear warning from someone in the police force to stop the investigation. Being a hero, he carries on working on the case.

We have several cringeworthy, gratuitous sex scenes, very badly written. Sex scenes are extremely difficult to write, the author is certainly aware of this, yet persists, likely in pursuit of the lowest possible denominator for the novel. Towards the end clichés abound:

"[He] was shaken, his face drained. An adage came to mind: If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. [...]"

For comedy relief, the last page has a publisher's blurb that says "One Police Plaza is a first novel of rare authenticity." Yes, maybe in showing the ubiquity of corruption. But the characters are pure paper, ratcheting violence and gore replaces plot development, and the prose is mediocre at best.

Two stars.

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