The Black Marble

A washed-up LAPD cop with a bad drinking problem gets a new partnerThe Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Station is like a strainer, dredging the heart of L.A. and coming up with the city’s worst scum. But few criminals in its holding cells are lower than Detective A. A. Valnikov, a broken cop consumed with love for vodka and self-hatred. He was a useful detective once, but that was twenty years ago, and any pride he takes in his work is now long gone. His new partner is Natalie Zimmerman, an ambitious young detective eager to make good on her potential. The brass sticks her with Valnikov in hopes that she might help hold him together. She thinks it’s a sick joke, but it could be that the old lush has something to teach her. A dognapper is terrorizing Pasadena’s high society, and as the city’s grime floats to the surface, A. A. Valnikov should feel right at home.