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Homicide by David Simon |
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Homicide by David Simon
Publisher : Ballantine Books
List Price :$7.99
Amazon Price : $7.99
Used Price : $1.38
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| Reviews for Homicide
Amazon.com
This 1992 Edgar Award winner for best fact crime is nothing short of a classic. David Simon, a police reporter for the Baltimore Sun, spent the year 1988 with three homicide squads, accompanying them through all the grim and grisly moments of their work--from first telephone call to final piece of paperwork. The picture that emerges through a masterful accumulation of details is that homicide detectives are a rare breed who seem to thrive on coffee, cigarettes, and persistence, through an endlessly exhausting parade of murder scenes. As the Washington Post writes, "We seem to have an insatiable appetite for police stories.... David Simon's entry is far and away the best, the most readable, the most 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."
From 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.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From 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.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
An incomparable, epic nonfiction police procedural, covering one year with a Baltimore homicide squad--and a dizzying circus of mayhem and stark horror at vast length. Simon, a police reporter for the Baltimore Sun, spent 1988 as a fly on the wall with Baltimore's homicide unit. Here, he tells what it was like to investigate dozens of Baltimore's 234 murders that year. We follow three homicide squads from first alert by phone to arrival at the body, through first investigation of the crime scene, questioning of witnesses, and writing up reports back at the police department. Subjectively, however, we are right over the shoulder of the investigating detectives, sharing their horrifying safety-valve humor in the face of headless suicides, bullet-riddled corpses, a gutted 11- year-old girl and so on. This story is about turning over rocks on rock bottom and looking for what squirms. Murderers, it turns out, don't act like they do on TV--nor do the detectives: with the exception of suspects who kill loved ones in a rage, killers are utterly remorseless, and whatever stress they feel is tied to being the target of an investigation. Meanwhile, the detectives have to face protocol within the squad and among the three rival daily squads as well as a bedeviling tote board for daily cases and yearly wins and losses. Homicide is a rarified unit, for superhumanly motivated detectives who handle superhuman caseloads and investigate only those cases that seem to have leads; meanwhile, they carry forward last year's cases while attending trials and being witnesses. Family life gets brutally sacrificed, and starting up second families is the norm. Baltimore, Simon tells us, is now ``virtually equal'' to Washington ``on the national murder hit parade....'' During the book we follow three or four of the more blisteringly intense investigations that dominate the department's attention while other bloody, lead- filled, knifed, or strangled bodies fall daily and cool under our eyes. Deserves great praise and looks like a big winner. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
Edgar and Anthony Award Winner
Selected by the Literary Guild
"Remarkable...A true crime classic."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Enter the workday of real policemen. Follow fifteen detectives, three sergeants, and a lieutenant, whose job it is to investigate Baltimore's 234 murders. You will get a cop's-eye-view of the bureaucracy, the highs of success, the moments of despair, and the non-stop rush of pursuits, anger, banter, and violence that make up a cop's life. Now an acclaimed television series, this extraordinary book is the insider's look at what you have always wondered about.
Inside Flap Copy
Edgar and Anthony Award Winner
Selected by the Literary Guild
"Remarkable...A true crime classic."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Enter the workday of real policemen. Follow fifteen detectives, three sergeants, and a lieutenant, whose job it is to investigate Baltimore's 234 murders. You will get a cop's-eye-view of the bureaucracy, the highs of success, the moments of despair, and the non-stop rush of pursuits, anger, banter, and violence that make up a cop's life. Now an acclaimed television series, this extraordinary book is the insider's look at what you have always wondered about.
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