Finished David Simon's 'Homicide,' his 1991 book about a year with Baltimore's murder squad detectives, which was later made into a tv series. A long book, which covers a lot: personalities, politics, geography and race among other things. Took me a bit of time to get into the book as a lot is thrown at the reader - just keeping the cast of characters straight in one's head is an initial problem. Book also has some structural issues as well, but these can be forgiven because what Simon does is fascinating -ie. following cases from corpse on the ground to guilty verdict; watch detectives fail or succeed to keep their shit together under pressure; show us the politics of a police unit; or, describe some really bizarre crimes, if you like the prurient stuff. Ultimately, the book really works because Simon is a superb writer and the whole of this book is so much greater than it's sums. If you like true crime stuff, this one is a keeper. Wonderful.