Homicide

I loved this book because it was the basis of the incredible show, The Wire. Before starting the book, I always wondered if in-depth journalism could be written as a thrilling story, and Mr. Simon's incredible work proved it absolutely can be.

Despite it being over 700 pages, I couldn’t put it down. The reality David Simon showed in every word and every page, in all its flawed and uncomfortable humanity, was nothing short of mesmerizing. The details were so memorable that I felt like I was walking the same streets he described. This book inspired me a… show more.

Baltimore Sun crime reporter David Simon practically lived with the Baltimore City police to produce Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.

I love the writing, which is clean but descriptive. In the thirty years since it came out, this book has often been imitated but is still without rival. He wasn’t reporting stories I’d heard before (good guys chasing bad guys), and the social forces that the book explored (individual and institutional) were palpably real and never drawn in one dimension.

The contents inspired decades of television, from network TV’s Homicide: Life on the Street to The Wire… show more.

In 1979, Margo Wilson and I were granted access, for research purposes, to police files in Detroit, then the "homicide capital of America." Reading those files, and watching the over-worked homicide detectives in action, we gained great respect for the smart officers who were promoted from the ranks to detective, and I've been fascinated with how they pursue their craft ever since. No one has described this world and what it reveals about everyday lethal violence in America better than reporter David Simon, who was embedded as an "intern" in Baltimore's homicide unit for a year. The hit television series… show more.