Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (Canons)

by David Simon

Every 36 hours a citizen is shot, stabbed or bludgeoned to death in Baltimore. And at the centre of this is the city's homicide unit, a small group of men who fight for whatever justice is possible. The author gained access to a homicide unit, and this book is the story of a year on the violent streets of an American city. The narrative focuses on three detectives, each driven in his own way to find out how and why the bodies fall. Around them is a supporting cast and a city that is torn by racial tensions and plagued by an epidemic of drugs and crime.

• ISBN10: 0805080759
• ISBN13: 9780805080759
• Publish Date: 22 August 2006 (first published 31 October 1991)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Picador USA
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 672
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

If I had known what this book was really like on the inside, it would never have languished in to-read limbo for all these years. It’s extraordinary. Especially the way Simon weaves and builds the story, trusting you to trust him that it will all make sense, instead of exposition-dumping all at once. He tells the story for the people that walked those halls and those streets. And it’s deeply, darkly funny. (At least, if you have a homicide detective’s sense of humor, which I apparently do.) I think that was the part that surprised me the most, the part I liked best. It’s comedy in the tragedy, tragedy in the comedy, the way life truly is. And:

As usual, poetic justice has no place here.