A masterpiece . . . Simon has exceptional literary gifts of eye and ear. Few novelists have written so well about the corrosiveness of the modern American city -- MARTIN AMIS
David Simon has single-handedly raised the bar for writing about crime, crime-fighting and the messy and imprecise business of justice to new and nearly unreachable levels . . . a work of tremendous ambition which made everything in the genre to follow irrelevant -- ANTHONY BOURDAIN
True genius * * Sunday Times * *
A hard-nosed classic * * GQ * *
An extraordinary book * * Guardian * *
Brilliant . . . desolate, sharp, poetic and passionate * * Financial Times * *
The best book about homicide detectives by an American writer -- NORMAN MAILER
A staggering work that is almost impossible to put down . . . a gripping depiction of America's culture of violence . . . Simon conjures up his subjects' individual personalities in three-dimensional detail. The detectives leap off these pages . . . A raw, revelatory and utterly real account of life and death in Baltimore * * Metro * *
The real delight is the discovery of Simon's perfect ear for dialogue; his masterful construction and pacing; and his empathy for his occasionally brutal but nevertheless inspirational subjects * * Observer * *
Simon does an extraordinary job of getting under the skin and into the minds of the police officers * * New York Times Book Review * *
A remarkable psychological and personal picture of 18 men labouring under immense pressure in traumatic circumstances . . . it is not just a majestic piece of reporting, it demonstrates Simon's instinctive ability to identify how the political and psychological interact . . . It reads like a thriller as he takes you through the desperate world of inner city West and East Baltimore, slaying by slaying * * Daily Telegraph * *
A reporter who keeps his wits about him . . . A very good book * * The New Yorker * *
Homicide is as intense a work of observation as you're likely ever to find, studded with Simon's caustic, wry and suspicious personality, as well as the ability to portray people as they truly are, usually a complicated shade of grey * * Herald * *
Simon has captured the poetry of the meanest streets * * Los Angeles Times * *
Homicide is a beautifully-written, almost poetic observation of a desperately harrowing subject and Simon deserves the highest praise for going to the darkest places of the underbelly of the American dream and coming out with a gripping account of what it is like to live and work there * * Tribune * *
Brushes away the accretions of myth to reveal the banality of crime . . . it's a sober, unsurprised account of the desperately sad lives of people who commit most crimes and a quiet testimonial to the people who clear up the mess * * Word Magazine * *
Remarkable . . . A True Crime Classic . . . a journalistic masterpiece of a brutal, bloody, bewildering year in the Baltimore Police Department's homicide unit * * Associated Press * *
Certainly one of the most engrossing police procedural mystery books ever written, not only because the crimes and plots and personalities are real, but because Simon is a terrific writer who has mastered the necessities and nuances of his material * * Newsday * *
The world of urban violence has never been so well portrayed, nor has the day-to-day craft of the detective * * Chicago Tribune * *
Simon followed a group of Baltimore detectives through a year on the mean streets. The resulting book is a hefty volume, giving Simon cope for a huge amount of detail and it's this, I think, that makes it such compulsive reading. How the detectives work - the crime they dace, the casual murders, the hopeless lives - all seen through Simon's eyes and those of the detectives he follows so closely * * Publishing News * *
A frank, insightful, and meticulously detailed look at detectives and their work * * San Francisco Chronicle * *
An amazingly frank and often hilarious tribute to homicide detectives everywhere . . . Simon has taken the art of covering cops to a new high * * Washington Times * *
