![]() ![]() This backstory was kind of hard to get a handle on but the long and short of it is that Baker hates Reddick’s guts and instantly wants off the Chase squad. Baker has history with Reddick hazy backstory has it that Baker and his partner were on the scene during a bank robbery or something, and Reddick barged in, causing the crooks to kill Baker’s partner. I mean it’s ludicrous – we gotta find out why this undercover cop was killed, so we’re gonna need a motorcycle, a helicopter, and a fast car! Oh and we gotta pay for all of it ourselves. It’s even more incredible that three younger cops join him, all of them “chosen by computer:” Fred Sing, a Chinese guy who is an expert biker (and it’s pretty cool that Daniels doesn’t constantly remind us Sing is Chinese, so the book’s kinda modern in that regard at least) Norm Hamilton, a pilot who flew tons of helicopter missions in ‘Nam and finally Steve Baker, the top driver on the force. Hell, there won’t even be any backup if he gets in too deep. ![]() As expected, they also turn down Dawson’s “secret squad” idea in the opening, but their reactions are more sensible than Daniels intends to convey – I mean, a secret police squad, accountable to no one and totally off the books, could lead to nothing but trouble.īut to hell with sensibility! Reddick takes the job of leading the squad, even though he won’t get extra pay, the hours will be lousy, the danger will be high, and there will be no recognition for his deeds. Freeman himself was working on a secret case (one wonders what the hell is going on in this nameless city) and no one knows what it was, but due to the gem planted on him his widow and kids are being screwed out of his pension – as expected, the stupid city officials are more than willing to believe the cops are dirty. So it’s all off the books and Reddick is to put together a top-secret team, one which will conveniently enough be called “Chase,” even though Reddick didn’t come up with the name and doesn’t like it(!?). But Reddick had been drinking at the time and didn’t think Dawson would take him seriously. Actually the concept wasn’t Dawson’s idea – it was Captain Chase Reddick’s, a “heavyset” cop “well into his 40s” (Daniels by the way seems to mean “stocky” by “heavyset,” as he uses the word a few times throughout). This is the incident Inspector Dawson uses to make his “secret police force” a reality. He then stashes Freeman’s corpse and plants a gem on it, giving the implication that Freeman was dirty and on the take. The novel opens with what will turn out to be the sole death in the novel an undercover cop named Dan Freeman finally collars a thug he’s been chasing named Traynor, but Traynor gets the drop on Freeman and blows him away. So this is like the one job that would be worse than being sent to Vietnam. And there are no promotions and no recognition. Basically a police inspector in some unstated city wants to start a “secret” cop squad (gee, what could go wrong?), and when he can’t get the idea approved, he moves forward with it anyway…but it’s all so off-the-book that the squad members will have to cover operating costs out of their own pockets. It’s a wonder the show even got off the ground, because it has one of the most ridculous concepts I’ve ever encountered. I remember in college in the ‘90s my friends and I had recurring jokes on what Cannell was typing and throwing away – this was back before cell phones and the internet was still dial-up (plus it was for geeks anyway), so it’s not like we had much else to do or talk about.Ī little research shows that Cannell wrote this two-hour pilot, but then per network tradition the concept was altered before the actual series began – pretty much the same thing happened with The Six Million Dollar Man. Cannell probably any guy around my age will remember his name, if anything due to The A-Team, which Cannell created about a decade later and memorably featured that goofy bit at the end of each episode with him yanking the latest hot page off his typewriter and tossing it. series and tons of other books, most of them paperback originals.īut I of course had heard of series creator Stephen J. And I probably never would’ve even heard of it had it not been for this paperback novelization of the pilot episode, courtesy Norman Daniels, the author who gave us the Man From A.P.E. I never saw it, mostly due to the fact that I hadn’t been born yet. Chase was a cop show that lasted a single season, running from September of ’73 until spring of ’74. ![]()
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