Homicide

Rating:
Summary: One hell of a good read!!!!
Review: "Homicide" by David Simon is easily the best police procedural in years and beats anything out there. It is a fascinating and disturbing look into the underbelly of the Baltimore Police Department. And they even made a great show out of it!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Fierce
Review: 'Homicide' sweats reality from every pore. It's a masterful account of a year in the life of the Baltimore homicide division, and is packed with enough policework to fuel a dozen films and television series. It's never sensationalist, and throughout the course of the year we get to know the people who spend their lives running around in the dark - lots of little images stick with you, like the officers who go to crime scenes with 'Theme from Shaft' blaring on a portable cassette deck, or the frazzled officers who shout at corpses in a forlorn attempt to gain information from them, or the sweat-sodden shirts of the furnace-like night shift. Some crimes are solved, some crimes are not, and at the end you start to wonder why the policemen do the job they do, given that it entails lifting rotting bodies, and involves constant exposure to the worst things in the world without much financial recompense. You wonder why they don't just throw up their hands and give up - if the injustice doesn't get you, the office politics will. It gives a very good impression of the mind-numbing repetition of the job, without being at all boring. Throughout, Baltimore comes across as the futuristic Detroit from 'Robocop', and one can only imagine what a similar book set in Los Angeles would be like. Simon followed this up with 'The Corner', which trod a similar path but without being focused on the police.

Rating:
Summary: The kind of book you don't put down...
Review: ... until you are finished. Incredibly well-written, fascinating, and a page-turner. I've reacted this way to very few books, and _Homicide_ is one of them. Simon makes you laugh at the warped sense of humor of the Baltimore Homicide Squad, and cry at the tragedy of a little girl's body found in the projects.

This is just flat-out an amazing book. Read it.

Rating:
Summary: Chilling and dramatic
Review: A fan of the TV show that was based on this book, I decided to read the book. I was satisfied in many ways but disappointed in some. This book, first of all, is superb journalism. Simon has guts to do what he did--go inside a major urban homicide department and live the life of a detective for a year. Guts because of the sensivity required to deal with the people involved: the detectives, the police department and the city government, the victims and the families, the witnesses and the suspects. Guts because of the horrible nature of the job of a homicide detective, dealing every day with death. Simon does an excellent job describing the nature of the detectives' jobs and the events of the year he chronicles, while remaining for the most part even-handed in his treatment. He does tend to favor the detectives' point of view (not that they get off easy by any means), but that can be explained by the fact that they are the primary focus of the book and that the suspects and victims were rarely willing participants in the process.

This book covers the city of Baltimore, which is about an hour's drive from where I live. It describes the dark underbelly of the city, something most of us thankfully never see. When I go to Baltimore, I see a living, functioning city. From this book I learned that there a whole dimention to the city that I, again thankfully, know nothing about. I find it in a way shocking that the horrible crimes that Simon describes take place not in some far-off location, but basically in my own backyard, involving people I could possible bump into on the street. I do not generally suspect the worst about people, so to read about the things people are capable of doing to each other, in my own country, in my own state, is mind-blowing. On a larger scale, Simon is describing people's inhumanity toward each other, people doing things to each other that I never thought someone could be capable of--men raping two-year-olds, eviserating 11-year-olds, killing each other over $20 or an article of clothing. What is wrong with these people, I kept asking myself. Truth is truly stranger than fiction. If these events were not true, nobody would believe them. And what shines through clearly in Simon's narrative is that these detectives, overworked and underpaid, are capable of living with this kind of evil on a daily basis and still function, still solve crimes, still hold people accountable for their actions. Sure they have their coping mechanisms and warped view of the world, but they manage to do what we, the public, ask them to do, and do it well.

This books stops short of five stars for a few reasons. First, subjectively, the real detectives in the book did not live up to the detectives in the TV show. They were less likable, some even first-rate jerks. They flaunt their positions as police detectives, they make raw jokes, racist comments, are sexist and homophobic, acting in ways unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, if there is such a thing in urban police departments. Their actions, while faithfully described by the author, are a little hard to take at times. Second, the vulgarity got old after a while. Simon's goal of realism could still have been achieved without directly quoting every swear word that came out of someone's mouth.

In all, though, the year that Simon covers goes by very quickly and at the end of the book, as old cases carry over into the next year and new cases crop up, he leaves you wanting the stories to go on. He admits in his note at the back of the book that a calendar year is an arbitrary mark when it comes to homicides. They just keep coming.

Rating:
Summary: Dave's Serial Killer Home Page Book Review....
Review: A fascinating look inside the life and death world of murder through the eyes of a Homicide Detective. This is definitely a book you will have trouble putting down....

Rating:
Summary: Best non-fiction book I ever read
Review: A incredibly touching, informative, funny story of a squad of 8 homicide detectives and what they encounter on their jobs on a daily basis. Read this book. And "The Onion Field" also.

Rating:
Summary: Sets the stage for the TV Show
Review: A must read for anyone who enjoys the television series.

Rating:
Summary: Adds depth to the TV series
Review: A very good read for someone who likes the series. Also adds important lingo for those (like me) who are interested in criminal investigations and the development of forensic evidence. Gives insight as to the motivations of homicide detectives (there's money in murder) and how the prosecutor is so dependent on a good detective for a strong legal case. Shows how criminals and suspects are treated in the system, and the way that a suspect's rights are protected (or not) in this system. Very enlightening! Only reservation is that the book is verbose and meandering at times.

Rating:
Summary: A great book....
Review: A very well written piece of work, provides a gritty and informative view on murder investigation.

Rating:
Summary: Impossible to put down.
Review: An engrossing real-life book about Baltimore homicide detectives. It's an excellent book, and if you watch the show, then it's a great book to read. Even if you don't, you'll enjoy it.