Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets

Entertainment Weekly

Forget Ed McBain and Joseph Wambaugh, too. From the blood on the street to the repartee in the squad room, from autopsy etiquette to office politics, Simon gives us the homicide cop's beat—monstrous, draining, bleakly fascinating—as it's never been seen before.

Newsday

One of the most engrossing police procedural mystery books ever written, not only because the crimes and plots and personalities are real, but because Simon is a terrific writer.

Orlando Sentinel

Through wonderfully descriptive writing, Simon details the work of fifteen detectives, three sergeants and a lieutenant charged with investigating dozens of Baltimore's 234 murders that year....Simon takes readers inside the detectives' lives, describing the frustration of departmental red tape and politics, the bursts of energy and moments of despair....For a complete look at what it's like to investigate violence for a living, Homicide is well worth the time.

San Diego Union

This may be the best true-crime book, the best naked look at murder and cops and crime and life on the killing streets of big-city America in the late 20th century....A rich, revealing look at the twisted lives of killers and their victims and at the men who are obsessed with solving the most heinous and baffling murders.

San Francisco Chronicle

A frank, insightful, and meticulously detailed look at detectives and their work.

Washington Post Book World

We seem to have an insatiable appetite for police stories....David Simon's entry is far and away the best, the most readable, reliable and relentless of them all....An eye for the scenes of slaughter and pursuit and an ear for the cadences of cop talk, both business and banter, lend Simon's account the fascination that truth often has....Fueled by coffee, cigarettes, and the drive to "put down" (i.e. close) cases, these heroes keep at it long after ordinary mortals would have lost heart.

Publishers Weekly

Baltimore Sun reporter Simon spent a year tracking the homicide unit of his city's police, following the officers from crime scenes to interrogations to hospital emergency rooms. With empathy, psychological nuance, racy verbatim dialogue and razor-sharp prose, he offers a rare insider's look at the detective's tension-wracked world. Presiding over a score of sleuths is commander Gary D'Addario, "connoisseur of survival'' who grapples with political intrigue, massive red tape and "red balls'' (major, difficult cases). His detectives include Tom Pelligrini, obsessed with solving the rape-murder of an 11-year-old girl; Rich Garvey, whose "perfect year'' is upset by a murder case that collapses in court; and black, cosmopolitan Harry Edgerton, a lone wolf, son of a jazz pianist. This hectic daily log reveals the detective's beat on Baltimore's mean streets (234 murders in 1988) to be brutal, bureaucratic and, occasionally, mundane. (June)

Library Journal

The city of Baltimore saw 234 murders in 1988. Allowed unlimited access to a shift of the city's homicide unit, police reporter Simon chronicles that year. The sociopaths, the crackheads, and their crimes are horrifying, but equal horrors are found in the attitudes of jurors in a case of the shooting and blinding of a policeman and in statistics showing the ultimate legal fates of those apprehended by the unit. Immersing his readers in cases, procedures, politics, and the detectives' personalities, Simon risks being sabotaged by the sheer scope of his account. Still, for those with strong stomachs and the willingness to work to keep the characters and dramas straight, he has produced a riveting slice of urban life. Recommended.-- Jim Burns, Pompano Beach City Lib., Fla.