Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
by David Simon
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Read in March, 2008
“The Wire” is over. “The Wire,” which salvaged so many depressing Sunday nights. “The Wire,” which was the only reason we subscribed to HBO. “The Wire,” one of the few television dramas where I’ve repeatedly found myself thinking of all the characters and their situations as real.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels the same way. Fictional or not, Omar got obituaries in publications across the country when his character died a few weeks ago. Whole NFL teams gather to...more
I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels the same way. Fictional or not, Omar got obituaries in publications across the country when his character died a few weeks ago. Whole NFL teams gather to...more
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Read in April, 2008
recommended to Leahc by:
Scottrecommends it for: Jason, Olga
We all remember, or most of us remember anyways, the TV show that was on in the 90s called Homicide. I remember watching it with my dad in our basement in the house in Des Plaines. I don't know why I am writing that last part as it's totally not relevant to the book.
I didn't realize that the show was first a book. Finding this out I sent a copy to my dad in the islands over Christmas. After he blew through this book in a few days he handed it off to me last month when I was visiting him.
...more
I didn't realize that the show was first a book. Finding this out I sent a copy to my dad in the islands over Christmas. After he blew through this book in a few days he handed it off to me last month when I was visiting him.
...more
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Reporter David Simon spends a year inside the Homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department, observing the "murder police" working in a city which routinely has one the highest murder rates in North America. 234 murders occurred in Baltimore the year Simon wrote the book.
The murder scenes are described in every gory, grisly detail imaginable. Several cases we follow through the course of th ebook, most notably the murder of a grade school girl found in an empty lot near her ho...more
The murder scenes are described in every gory, grisly detail imaginable. Several cases we follow through the course of th ebook, most notably the murder of a grade school girl found in an empty lot near her ho...more
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Simon was meticulous while exploring the lives, criminals, and nuances associated with homicide detectives. Simon's eye for the particulars were evident when the reader was sent through the thought process of Detective Donald Steinhice, who was not convinced that the woman hanging from her bedroom ceiling had indeed committed suicide. This was because the woman's bedroom slippers, which were on the floor beneath her feet, did not correspond to the foot from which they had presumably been worn-he...more
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Read in January, 2007
Effin' sueet. David Simon, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, spends one year in with the Baltimore Homicide Unit, and this 640 page opus is his account of the day to day operations of a big city police department and the unique fraternity of homicide detectives. Fans of the brilliant 1990s TV series Homicide: Life on the Street will recognize some of the characters, but this book is so much more than that series ever was. Written in huge, ...more
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Read in November, 2007
I don't want to keep bringing up The Wire over and over but dang it, if something is good and no one watches it, I'm going to keep doing it! This book, written by The Wire's creator and written in 1991 is a thrilling, engrossing, disturbing, sad look into the Baltimore homicide department over the course of a year. Baltimore had lots of murders and this is an in depth look at virtually ever facet of what is like to be a detective. It also covers other areas of urban Baltimore life--sort of like ...more
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Read in March, 2007
A great read for anyone who enjoys the Wire on HBO or the NBC show Homicide: Life on the Street. David Simon, the creator and executive producer of both shows, writes about his experiences following Baltimore Police Department Homicide detectives for a year. Simon started his career as a crime reporter for the then venerable Baltimore Sun. As a result he has a very clear, concise writing style and a real passion for both the city and the department itself. This book strips away all of the f...more
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There are two books I read that totally motivate me to stay in journalism. This is one of them. Simon covers a year in the life of the Baltimore Police Department's homicide division. The writing it outstanding and it shows how cases are really solved, or unsolved, as opposed to the quick-fix fiction mysteries. This contains the famous photocopying machine used to get confessions out of dumb criminals, and the giant case board that Simon sued NBC over when the network developed a television dram...more
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Read in April, 2008
What can you really say about this book? It's simply amazing, and often a pure pleasure to read. Then certain vignettes are just absolutely disgusting, appalling, and very hard to take. I think the most effective accounts were the pieces that stress a homicide detective's duty to a victim, a responsibility for the dead to die with decency. The Black Widow exhumation tale near the end was particularly awful as was the brief, but unforgettable (to me at least), drug overdose in which a man is call...more
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recommends it for:
true crime nerds or any fan of good journalism
This book, which inspired the excellent TV show of a similar name, is a portrait of how a drug epidemic and a failing economy turn historic city boulevards into killing streets. Baltimore sets the stage for this unblinkingly raw true story about a reporter that spent a year shadowing a homicide unit during the period where Baltimore was setting records with its murder rate. Stripped of romanticism or judgement, the stories of these murders assault your sensibility and notions of the worth of a h...more
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Read in November, 2007
I adored this book. It told the story of cops and the dysfunctionality warts and all. I live in Baltimore so maybe I am biased, but what a great book. In the book there's a greasy spoon restaurant opposite the morgue. They'd take new homicide detectives there after a particularly gruesome autopsy and if they could eat the full fried breakfast then they'd figure that the new detective was going to make it in the unit. Well I went there last week for lunch, so much did the book grab me and pu...more
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Read in January, 2007
recommended to Marty by:
,recommends it for: anybody into true crime, detective stories, liked IN COLD BLOOD even a little
Probably my favorite book.
It's the best piece of true crime probably out there.
It's very thorough and can be intimidating at first. But you get sucked into everything that is going on, you gradually come to know the characters and detectives.
It's hilarious too.
Plus, Simon is the creator of the best show out there in the WIRE. A lot of the stories/characters used from the book are in the show (probably more so in Homicide, but they can push the envelope more on HBO). They will be tea...more
It's the best piece of true crime probably out there.
It's very thorough and can be intimidating at first. But you get sucked into everything that is going on, you gradually come to know the characters and detectives.
It's hilarious too.
Plus, Simon is the creator of the best show out there in the WIRE. A lot of the stories/characters used from the book are in the show (probably more so in Homicide, but they can push the envelope more on HBO). They will be tea...more
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Read in April, 2008
This book is REALLY GOOD, and you know what THAT means: yes, you've got it, it means that I probably WILL like "The Wire" and therefore have to chalk up yet another thing that makes me a totally generic white liberal aged 25-50. But seriously, although I acknowledge that "Homicide" would seem to fit in with my secret love of true crime, there were sentences in here that made me want to squeal with glee, and I don't squeal unless the content is backed up by style. Simon has ...more
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Read in February, 2008
David Simon spent over a year in the homicide division of the Baltimore city police. After some rites of passage, the detectives accepted his presence and allowed him to be their shadow for the year.
This is an amazing look inside the work and play of these detectives and inside the types of murders that occur in what could be almost any city. The names are real; The descriptions of the crime scenes and suspects are real; even the interrogations are real.
This was huge undertaking, a...more
This is an amazing look inside the work and play of these detectives and inside the types of murders that occur in what could be almost any city. The names are real; The descriptions of the crime scenes and suspects are real; even the interrogations are real.
This was huge undertaking, a...more
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Read in February, 2006
This is the fascinating story of David Simon's time with the Baltimore Homicide Detectives. Truth is stranger and way more interesting than fiction, in the case of this book, which inspired the NBC series "Homicide: Life on the Streets", the HBO miniseries "The Corner" and the HBO series "The Wire," all of which are quality shows. There aren't any gun battles or over-the-top action sequences, but what you will find is the humor, horror and grit of the day-to-day l...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in May, 2008
FINALLY finished this. It was good, I think the best part is probably the dialogue between the detectives because they're funny. They have a job I would never want, and it makes it clear how different all those crime tv shows are from the real thing.
The writer followed the detectives of the Baltimore homicide department for a year, and this book details pretty much everything that happened during that year, which explains the 640 page length. I don't know, maybe it could have been short...more
The writer followed the detectives of the Baltimore homicide department for a year, and this book details pretty much everything that happened during that year, which explains the 640 page length. I don't know, maybe it could have been short...more
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For the Very Long Book Club.
Very possibly the greatest American book evar. No, I'm not kidding. By following an overworked, underpaid, unappreciated squad of Baltimore homicide cops around for a year, David Simon does nothing short of flay the corpse of big city life at the ass-end of the 20th century -- and not coincidentally kicks off a brilliant career as a television writer and producer. The disquisitions on the Miranda process and on police-involved shootings are brilliant essays in ...more
Very possibly the greatest American book evar. No, I'm not kidding. By following an overworked, underpaid, unappreciated squad of Baltimore homicide cops around for a year, David Simon does nothing short of flay the corpse of big city life at the ass-end of the 20th century -- and not coincidentally kicks off a brilliant career as a television writer and producer. The disquisitions on the Miranda process and on police-involved shootings are brilliant essays in ...more
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Read in February, 2007
recommends it for:
Reporters, true crime lovers
Perhaps the finest true crime book I've read in the last decade. Simon's Homicide spends a year with the Baltimore PD homicide squad in the late 1980s, and spells out the problems of urban decay, law enforcement and criminal justice, all with a sharp, dark sense of humor. It's the funniest book on inner-city dispair you'll ever read.
Also, if you're a fan of The Wire (and if you're not, what's wrong with you?), you'll recognize several scenes from the series, first reported as anecdotes and b...more
Also, if you're a fan of The Wire (and if you're not, what's wrong with you?), you'll recognize several scenes from the series, first reported as anecdotes and b...more
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IMHO, the true modern police procedural was born with this book. Serving as the inspiration for the TV series "Homicide: Life on the Street," Simon chronicles his year spent alongside the Baltimore PD Homicide unit. Some particularly brutal detail is captured here, but also the detailed step-by-step procedures of a true homicide investigation. Get to know a detective and check this out. It's insanely compelling for non-fiction, and the glimpses into the detectives' psychii are both sci...more
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Read in February, 2008
Despite an almost complete lack of interest in police stories, I found myself enjoying this book...at least as much as one can enjoy page upon page of examinations of rape, murder, suicide and all the other unseemly things that people do to each other.
As a fan of The Wire, I was mostly interested in seeing Simon's prose and how his vision has remained or changed with the show. I can happily say that he is a thoroughly talented writer and a tremendously reliable moral compass.
Cool!
As a fan of The Wire, I was mostly interested in seeing Simon's prose and how his vision has remained or changed with the show. I can happily say that he is a thoroughly talented writer and a tremendously reliable moral compass.
Cool!
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