This is one of my favorite books. The television show Homicide: Life on the Streets was based on this book.

David Simon is a brilliant and eloquent writer. Simon worked for the Baltimore Sun, writing the crime reports. He wanted to get a better idea of how the detectives work, so he spent the year 1988 observing one shift of Baltimore detectives. There were 234 murders in the city that year.

If you like a good detective story where you get to figure out who did it before the story ends, this isn't for you. This is real - some cases don't get solved. The bad guy doesn't always go to trial or to jail. The good guys don't always win. But they keep trying - because it's their job. This is what they do. This is what they believe in. And that's what this book is all about.

From page 18...

"Your paycheck may come from fiscal services but, goddammit, after six beers you can pretty much convince yourself that you work for the Lord himself... If you are good enough, you will never do anything else as a cop that matters this much. Homicide is the major leagues, the center ring, the show. It always has been. When Cain threw a cap into Abel, you don't think the Big Guy told of couple of fresh uniforms to go down and work up the prosecution report. Hell no, he sent a fucking detective. And it will always be that way, because the homicide unit of any urban police force has for generations been the natural habitat of that rarefied species, the thinking cop."

I can't recommend this one highly enough.

RELEASE NOTES:

Left on a ledge in the waiting area.