David Simon’s book has been the fiundation of a number of startling and ground-breaking television series. Latterly, Simon has been the inspiration behind The Wire.

This book gives us one year in the life of the Baltimore Police Department Homicide squad, looking at the people, the vicitms, the suspects and the criminals. Simon was allowed unprecedented access and uses his reportage skills to present a fly-on-the-wall picture of the whole seamy operation (as he says, like sasuages, you never want toknow what happens underneath).

The book fascinates with an amost hypnotic rhythm of death, investigation and retribution (sometimes). The detectives appear mostly like any other skilled office workers wrestling with procedures and paperwork and certainly not like avenging angels or near-superheroes.

Although Simon was allowed full access to the squad he still comes across as an outsider and I think this reduces the impact of the book somewhat. We do not see the full personal interplay of the detectives and they are still very two-dimensional.

The research was done in the late 1980s and although there seem to have been a few updates to the text, this shows. But maybe plus ca change…

I would strongly recommend this book as a salutory vision of the potential for failure in human society and what awaits us all if we are not vigilant. ( )

While I agree that this book could have esily been a few hundred pages shorter, what makes this book worth reading is the extent to which you know every cop on Dee's squad by the end of it. Simon's journalism goes beyond dogged dedication and extends into meaningful (and true) storytelling.

The characters on the squad areas memorable as they are multi-faceted. Jay Landsman, especially, stands out, as a man who approaches his job like a player in a situation comedy, and one of the only Jewish cops on the force. Landsman can be relied upon for a filthy, black-humored wisecrack. Landsman lives on in equally enjoyable fictional characters, such as John Munch in L&O: SVU and Meyer Landsman in Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union. Harry Edgerton is memorable as well, as the quiet, intellectual "non-black" man who'd rather work alone.

Also, Simon effortlessly creates the landscape of Baltimore's blood-soaked streets, where in the late eighties, two murders occurred every three days. For over six hundred pages, the reader's mind is filled with cigarettes, coffee, sqd cars and service revolvers.

If you can get into it, Homicide is a valuable and deep exploration of how the men who clean up the messes of human misery live. ( )

In 1998, a young reporter named David Simon spent a year attached to the Baltimore Homicide Unit, reporting on what he saw, how the Officers did their jobs, various murders which were dealt with and how those cases progressed. This book is the result of that year - and it's an amazing and absorbing read (particularly for someone like myself, who generally prefers fiction). No names were changed, although on a few occasions, certain persons remain anonymous, and there was no poetic licence used - events were written exactly as they occurred.

This book works both as an entertaining read, and a remarkable piece of journalism. One case in particular - the brutal molestation and murder of a young girl - forms a major part of the book, just as it formed a major part of the unit's lives, and one detective in particular.

The writing itself is amazing and makes some of the cases so visible in the mind's eye that it is at times almost painful to read. But what are equally as compelling as the many cases written about, are the little anecdotes about squad room life, and the relationships between the various members of the squad. Sometimes the detectives come across as callous, racially insensitive, and/or sexist, and certainly they seem to find humour in the darkest situations, but above all they come across as people determined to right some of the wrongs in the world.

It is the only third book I have read this year, but I am fairly confident that at in twelve months time, I will be listing it as one of my favourite books of 2009. Very highly recommended. ( )

A fascinatingly gritty and realistic description of the dynamics of a homicide department. I wish Simon was more explicit as to his own presence and interventions in the events he describes; I also wish he'd trimmed about one or two hundred pages out of the book. But still, brilliant journalistic work. ( )

A journalist spends a year with Baltimore homicide detectives and ends up writing quite simply one of the best books I've ever read. Up there with HST's Hell's Angels or Mailer's The Fight in demonstrating that at it's peak journalism becomes art. This recent re-issue is particularly good because of the Post Mortem at the end where Simon explains the background to the book and what has happened since. It goes without saying that any fan of The Wire or Homicide: Life On The Streets should read it (and if you are not a fan of The Wire I doubt your sentience), but it should also be read by any fan of crime fiction or by anyone interested in US politics and culture. ( )