Homicide
The scene is Baltimore. Twice every three days another citizen is shot, stabbed or bludgeoned to death. At the centre of this hurricane of crime is the city's homicide unit, a small brotherhood of hard men who fight for whatever justice is possible in a deadly world. David Simon was the first reporter ever to gain unlimited access to a homicide unit, and his remarkable book is both a compelling account of casework and an investigation into out culture of violence.
Stats for nerds
13recommend
29mentions
19people
2010–2026years
66% recommend34% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- It was created by a journalist and a cop, who both had long careers in Baltimore before working on the show. Not surprising how realistic it is. (Also a beautiful work of art beyond the realism.) If you find the show interesting, David Simon's book "Homicide" is a great read.
- For nonfiction I think about Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood by David Simon (and Ed Burns for The Corner) a lot. They are very funny and very sad and really changed how I see the world. So I cheated, two books.
- Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, David Simon
I usually don't read anything true crime like, but this book struck me as an almost endless maelstrom of night feverish violence.
This and 'The corner' are the books that 'The wire' is based on.
- If you've enjoyed The Wire, do read David Simon's books, it's outstanding work:
- Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
- The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood
- In the excellent true crime book, "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets", David Simon (future creator of The Wire), talks about the Miranda warning in the context of interrogations. When originally introduced, law enforcement bemoaned that this would hamstring their ability to gain confessions from suspects, because any sensible criminal would simply ask for a lawyer. He then goes on to explain that wily police detectives, instead, were able to use Miranda as a tool - "this is something we have to get out of the way so we can get you home" and "look, you can get a lawyer, but then we can't figure this out right here".
He points out that lying to suspects is both a tool and a risk - if you tell a suspect that there was blood found on his shoes, and the suspect knows that he wasn't wearing those shoes during the crime, he knows you have nothing.
I highlight this because it's fine and good to ban lying to suspects, but not all lies are strictly untrue, and it's possible to use partially true statements to one's benefit in an interrogation. Simon points out that interrogations, by their very nature, are coercive, and if we really want to protect the rights of suspects, mandating an attorney present at an interview is the only way to ensure that.
- David Simon's books "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets" and "The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood" (co-written with former homicide detective Ed Burns) are the kind of stories that change your thinking forever.
