Bumper Morgan es un policía de la calle a punto de jubilarse. No quiere dejarlo. Tiene cincuenta y tantos. Está con una mujer espléndida. La perspectiva de un amor eterno mano a mano lo desconcierta. Está enganchado al placer mundano y a veces apasionante del trabajo policial. En el fondo del corazón, tiene miedo.

El trabajo en su territorio de ronda le permite vivir en un nivel distanciado y circunscrito. Reina benévolamente en su pequeño reino. Da y recibe afecto de una forma compartimentada que nunca pone a prueba su vulnerabilidad. Le asusta amar a pecho descubierto. Sus últimos días en el cuerpo van pasando. Aumenta el rechazo a dejarlo. Interceden acontecimientos violentos. Sirven para salvarlo y condenarlo, y le procuran el único destino lógico posible.

This book is set in 1972 Los Angeles
Main character is Bumper Morgan a veteran of the LAPD
He is working his last few days of his beat as is due to retire at the end of the week.
20 years on the job and he is nearly 50.
Bumper is a larger than life character and has met many nice and not so nice people on his beat.
People look up to him as he uses common sense to police the streets.

Spoiler alert Bumper's friend and Boss is killed and now its looking like he cant retire just yet as he wants to avenge his killing. ( )

This book was on a list of recommended mysteries, and was found in the mystery section--yet I don't think it really belongs there--both because this is no whodunnit, but also because it transcends that genre. We follow "Bumper" Morgan through the last three days of this beat in 1970s Los Angeles before he retires after 20 years on the police force.

And it's a great voice for a great character. Bumper is both cynical and idealistic--a knight with slightly tarnished armor--he feels very real. He's getting to an age where he can't do the job anymore that holds him in its grip--he's fat, he can't run, he has gas and his eyes aren't as sharp as they once were. And as his best friend and fellow cop Cruz Segovia tells him, the job is a whore, taking without giving, and his only hope is being able to accept love and a life beyond it.

I love how Bumper is not just allowed to make mistakes, but that those mistake have consequences. There's a bit of Don Quixote and Willy Loman in Bumper. In his introduction, Michael Connelly says a great work of crime fiction tells not of how a cop works his cases, but how the cases work him, and by any measure this is a great work of crime fiction on those terms that made me think all through about what it must be like to be a cop. ( )