Talking out Loud  (English, Paperback, D E Gray)

Casey Hoghupper, a six-year veteran police officer working LAPD’s Seventy-Seventh Division has a secret. She has a guardian angel that no one else can see or hear but her. The problem is the other officers in her division only see her “talking out loud” when no one else is present. Question: Is the stress of the job causing her to lose her mind? The captain of her division, along with city psychologist Althea Bianchi are tasked with finding out if she is still fit to “protect and to serve” the citizens of Los Angeles. Evaluating Casey Hoghupper wouldn’t be easy for Dr. Bianchi since Casey herself has earned a BA degree in psychology from renowned Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. The two would go head-to-head during their office visit, and later after spending only one night as an observer during Hoghupper’s Watch-3 shift. Dr. Bianchi becomes even more convinced that she should be relieved of her police powers and retired to civilian life. Aside from several appearances by her guardian angel, Casey’s demeanor as a police officer has always been completely above board, professional, and by the book. And thanks to Seventy-Seventh Division captain Howard Carver, Dr. Bianchi would end up more or less falling on her own sword. In an effort to escape some of the stigma given to her by her fellow police officers, Casey puts in for a transfer to another division, and soon finds herself working Hollywood Division. Hollywood is the place elitists like to refer to as the “entertainment capital of the world,” but to the Hollywood coppers who work there, it’s the land of “fruits and nuts.” Casey realizes that whoever coined the phrase “being a cop in LA is like having a ringside seat to the greatest show on earth” was on point. But now, working Hollywood Division, it was time to “send in the clowns.” After another visit from her guardian angel, Casey Hoghupper thwarts the mass murder of over twenty people who were staying at the Hollywood Gay Dream Motel on a chilly Christmas Eve. Her quick actions made it possible for all the guests to flee the motel just minutes before it is leveled and burned to the ground by a murderer’s homemade bomb. Casey Hoghupper teams up with Det. Marrisa Ortega, and together they go on the hunt to track down the suspect who planted the bomb, if for no other reason than to hide the murder of the man named John Smith in room 12. This story will have you crying, laughing, and rooting for cops who have to deal not only with the Hollywood eccentrics, but the streetwise criminals and those within the LAPD’s ivory tower.