Review by: Samantha M. Chandler
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Disclaimer: I am so sorry that this review is late. Crazy life changes have had me put some things on hold. I am trying to start a tutoring/ life skill coaching business in the chaos that is 2020. My next crazy goal is to upload new documents onto Teachers Pay Teachers for social studies educators everywhere! So, lots of new things in the works, but still trying to get my reading in.
QUICK SUMMARY:
The book that I read was not the original 1991 book. I read the 2006 version. I also listened to the 1991 audiobook on Audible. This created some chaos as the 2006 version has some new text and information. I did like the Audible accompaniment with music. It aligned well with the story as well as setting the mood for the next chapter.
As an avid watcher of any crime show and a reader of many mystery/ true crime books, this book was a face full of homicidal crime realism and the inner workings of police units, relationships between detectives and the community, as well as excellent journalism (I mean a twenty-something-year-old wrote it and was a smash hit, even eventually earned a TV series). This book is an inside, very personal look, at the detective’s lives, comradery, their mindsets, and what it actually takes to solve a crime successfully. It was an eye-opening experience with the complicated relationships between detectives, Blacks, and Billies (hillbillies). Also, the journalism was on another level. Mr. Simon did a wonderful job of not just reporting but building the stories of detectives and their relationships with the bosses, witnesses, victims, and the fucking guilty assholes. Some crimes in here made me sick. Other crimes made me angry. Yet, some of them made me just plain sad. Just like the detectives on the case, I had a roller coaster of emotions throughout this read and that was all thanks to Dave. He crushed it.
THE REVIEW
Matthew Daley recommended this book to me around 3 years back and I finally picked it up and started reading it. He hyped it up pretty hardcore with things that a semi-twisted mind that likes dark humor, like myself, would enjoy. As the quote in the very beginning from the Arizona Republic states “The dialogue is gritty and true as hell, the human beings are flawed, and the endings are not the stuff of fairy tales. If you’re interested in the Real Thing, read this. It makes other crime books look like dime novels.” They were right. They were absolutely freaking right.
Murder, deception, racial tensions, socio-economic tensions, understanding of the street rules, real people, and of course great pull quotes is what this 646-page book enticed me with. This book was not a quick read for me. I needed to slow down, take breaks, analyze sections, learn about the geographic area (thank you to Google Earth), learn about a piece of history, or why something in particular was missing. In my mind, I felt like I always wanted to know more because the book created something that was missing.
The next enticing, juicy detail was the raw information. The fact that a homicide department allowed a reporter in to snoop around and get the scoop as well as shuffle through case files and be in on interrogations still surprises me. I feel like this would not be allowed today between the unions, protections against the accused, evidence, and the higher-ups in the homicide department.
That being said, I would rate this book a 5/5. The genres include true crime, journalism, and non-fiction. I believe that seeing the inner details of detective work; the weird, awkward, awful, and great relationships between the detectives and citizens; and the excellent journalism, not only warrants a 5/5, but also leads me further into my review.
Detective Work/ Detective Interaction
Some cases are closed while others are completely lost in the forgotten space of a file cabinet. A nice reminder that sometimes, cases aren’t closed. We don’t live on TV shows like Bones, CSI, or Criminal Minds where those cases are SOLVED in the matter of an hour (in reality, most likely a few days). The real work doesn’t happen that way. TV makes us forget that. Not even cases like child rape/murder.
It sucks and it hurts me to admit it because it means there isn’t always true justice just sitting around and waiting to be served. I can’t imagine what it must feel like for a detective to get a case that is unsolvable. The self-hating, the grasping at clues, the long nights of digging for anything that someone said and returning to the crime scene repeatedly. This quote just kicked me in the face over and over again as I read this book: “The victim is killed once, but a crime scene can be murdered a thousand times.” (80). This makes it so difficult when a crime scene is disturbed because every little bit at a crime scene is super important to solving a crime. However, sometimes there are just empty basements with a dead body. Not much to go off of. This is what some of these detectives have to do. Go off of very little.
You’ll see all of these struggles mentioned above personified in Detective Tom Pellegrini. Hell of a guy to stick with a case that others told him to give up on months ago. However, he sticks with it for an unbearable amount of time. Someone who just wants to solve the crime of a dead black girl that was raped and killed. A guy that wants to solve this case as if it was personal, in order to get back on his A-game and help bring the community closure. “Because in a police department of about three thousand sworn souls, you are one of thirty-six investigators entrusted with the pursuit of that most extraordinary of crimes: the theft of a human life. You speak for the dead. You avenge those lost to the world.” (17). That is Tom Pellegrini and that is his job as a detective.
I was certainly shocked when I read certain parts of this book. The Arizona Republic was right… “it was true and gritty as hell.” People tend to learn to disassociate themselves from traumatic events that they experience or have been a witness to and the detectives are no different. The detectives certainly did. At one point, a young girl is found raped and murdered on the side of the street. Detectives cannot bear to look at the little girl and think, that could have been my girl. It would have wrecked them. They can’t look at a woman and think, she looks like my wife. They would have broken down and cried. They disassociate. Part of that is through their crass laughter/inappropriate jokes and some of that is by burying themselves deep into other cases. Part of this is them talking to each other and acknowledging that their job can be fucked up some days. Some of it is going to the bar with their colleagues because they can empathize with each other. These detectives are human, too. And they are doing what they have to, to survive. To try and solve these disgusting murders and stay sane while doing so.
Speaking of disassociation, another part of the book that I wanted to disassociate from but couldn’t, revolved around the medical examiner's room. Picture a pristine, organized, sanitized, and white sparkling medical examiner's room. Apparently not in 80s Baltimore during a heatwave. Not the case. Honestly, I was appalled at how the Medical Examiner’s office and room was everything opposite of today’s standards. Coffee and cigarettes were shared in the ME’s dissection room, and hell sometimes even beer made its way into the room. Too many bodies? Not a problem… just put them on the floor. Sloppy work. I mean prime evidence could have been lost or contaminated or planted on another body because of bodies piling up. That’s not cool. But again, different time period, different rules.
Detective interaction is a whole topic I could go rant and rant and rant about but wanted to focus on other aspects of the book as well. But I just couldn’t leave this part out. In today’s world, I truly seek to understand. Not be belittled, not be told I am wrong, not to be told I am right, but to understand whatever or whomever I am reading or talking to. There was one instance in the book where that slapped me in the face. Hard. It made me think about how some of my BIPOC friends continue to be treated within their jobs or everyday life as second-class citizens. It made me wonder how, and have, some of my BIPOC friends been treated within their job or in everyday life as a second-class citizen? If so how can we fix this and make the change that we need to see? The quote that really brought it home to today’s current elements and politics of race within the workplace was found on pages 526-527.
"The black middle class was simply a myth. They [white detectives] had heard about it, they [white detectives] had read about it but damned if they could find it in the city of Baltimore. [Detectives] Edgerton, Requer, Eddie Brown- they were black, they were essentially middle class- but they proved nothing… The prejudice ran deep. A man had only to stand in the coffee room and listen to a veteran white detective’s scientific analysis of homeboy head shapes… Now your bullet head, he’s a stone killer, he’s dangerous. But your peanut heads, they’re just dope dealers and sneak thieves. Now your swayback…”
Race plays a huge part in this book, and it should as it was a big part of racial animosity during the late 80s and early 90s. I found it interesting that this separation even took effect between the detectives. I know this shouldn’t shock me, but it still had an impact on me. For example, Harry Edgerton was “black, his cosmopolitan background, his coffeehouse leanings, even his New York accent so completely confounded expectations that he was regarded as inauthentic by white detectives accustomed to viewing blacks through the limited prism of their own experience in the Baltimore slums.” (55). In other words, he wasn’t a real black, because he didn’t grow up the way people thought blacks should grow up. Oh, and the icing on the cake is even the other black cop, Brown, viewed him this way, too. He didn’t act black enough either. Brown would sometimes get cases over Edgerton because he “fit” the role better. What the shit?! This is a problem.
My point with writing this is even in a world where there were middle-class black men and women making a living and doing great on the job, they were still a lower class. That their brothers and sisters were less than in the middle-class scheme. The only exemption was if one was on the police force. There is something unique about this. That even though these were Black detectives, they weren’t really truly black middle class because they were with the white Irishmen, making the black detectives also honorary Irish comrades. So, they were considered white middle class, but a lower white middle class. This made it easier in the minds of the white detectives that they were working with people like themselves. It was like they had to trick themselves into thinking that the Black detectives were valuable men in the unit. Complicated, right?
Detective/Civilian Relationships
Living or working within the Baltimore community during racial and police tension must have been very difficult. Tensions were high in the 80s from racial inequality (not unlike today). The blacks in the community didn’t want to talk to cops for two reasons: untrusting of cops and they knew if they talked it could be their family next in the killing lines. So, people lied or didn’t talk at all. If there is anything I learned from this book, it is don’t speak until a lawyer is present.
However, this type of relationship wasn’t always this way. There were times that the whole Boston community regardless of race, social status, job title, or any other barriers between detectives and citizens melted. Times like when an 11-year-old black girl is raped, murdered, and put on display in the community. The detectives have their rules (nobody makes any snide remarks and such) while the community cheers on the detectives and tries to help by giving them motivation and any answers they can to solve the crime. Why? Because even in the streets there are rules. And that rule is, you don’t hurt children in any way, shape, or form. Nobody wants to see their child like this and both detectives and citizens know that this is just fucked up. The department also felt a need to avenge any women who were murdered. A damsel in distress scenario. Like it was okay if men killed other men, but girls and women were just a no-no.
There were definite connections in this book that reach into the racial and policing inequality of the United States today, especially within the black community. This information is just the buildup for the hate that is still seen in Baltimore in the late 80s and early 90s. For example, “In 1962, when Donald Worden came out of the academy, the code was understood by the players on both sides. Break bad on a police, and there was a good chance that the cop would use his gun and use it with impunity.” (108-109).
David goes further to say that “most of the police-involved shootings of that time had racial overtones, the deadliest proof of the notion that for black, inner-city neighborhoods of Baltimore, the presence of the city’s finest was for generations merely another plague to endure: poverty, ignorance, despair, police. Black Baltimoreans grew up with the understanding that two offenses- talking up to a city cop or, worse, running from one - were almost guaranteed to result in a beating at best, gunfire at worst. Even the most prominent members of the black community were made to endure slights and insults…” (109). And it amazes me that this was just 60 years ago. 60 years later, America is still struggling with this similar problem. In my eyes, today is worse, due to the fact that we should be moving forward and becoming better people, not staying the status quo or even in some cases becoming worse. Police brutality. It’s all over the news, social media, and in our back yards. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Rayshard Brooks are just a few of the victims of police brutality. Blacks fighting harder in America because of their skin color when it comes to jobs, living, housing, or living in a world with police brutality. That makes me both angry and sad. Just like today, in the 1960s transformation happens slowly over time. And it started, just like today, to change because of the black community activism rising up. Today that is Black Lives Matter, riots, and protests, while back then it was MLK, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, race riots, protests, and marches.
What pisses me off is that we still don’t have a perfect system for policing, for courthouses and the law, for justice, for equality amongst all people. Unfortunately, since human beings are involved, we probably won’t ever have a perfect system. Nevertheless, I would like to say that there is hope. Perhaps things will change for the better in the future. Even after the awful events of January 6th, 2021, where domestic terrorists stormed the United States Capitol, there is hope of improvement. Policing was formed by southern whites that wanted to return runaway slaves. So yes, there is systemic racism within the police force, but I also believe that not every cop is bad. If that group would have been black and storming the Capital, I think based off of what America witnessed with the Black Lives Matter movement, actions would have been similar to the BLM protests and more lives would have been lost. We need a better way to monitor and keep the bad officers out, while also training and better equipping good officers to do their sworn job to protect EVERYONE in their communities equally. Not going to go on a rant about defunding the police here, but I’m just saying we need to find better solutions.
This shows that while the detective/ citizen relationship is extremely complicated now, it wasn’t much better in the 1980s and 1990s. People in the Baltimore community don’t call the cops after a shooting. Part of it is the complicated relationship between black citizens and the police, but the other part is that snitches end up dead. I mean when a detective was shot in the book, nobody called to cops. For example, at one point a woman named “Yolanda screamed, backed into the street, then wandered around the block to her house on Monroe Street, where she told her mother what had happened. At that point, neither mother nor child entertained thoughts about calling the police. Nor did John Moore… [and] Moore’s friend also refused to volunteer himself as a witness… and yet another couple, who had been walking on Appleton Street and witnessed the struggle…” (153-154). Each person had their own reason for why they didn’t call the cops.
Talking about complicated relationships, how about detectives and their interrogation methods? Around page 205, detectives were doing their job with asking questions, but they were also relying on the ability to dupe some of the uneducated into waving their rights (like the right to an attorney and the right to not self-incriminate themselves¬.) The detectives did this by saying that once the attorneys are involved there is nothing, they (the detectives) can do for them (the probable criminal).
That really struck a nerve with me. Every year I teach 8th-grade students their rights because I am scared they won’t be represented correctly like in this instance. This shit scares me. Honestly. I know that I want a lawyer present if I am ever asked to talk to a detective or cop after reading this section of the book. To hell if I am completely innocent, I’m not saying shit! That is terrifying. I mean I want them to catch the real bad guys and put them away, but I also want some justice and security for innocent people. As you can read, I literally struggled with this chapter. Do the crime you do the time. And even then, everyone (guilty or innocent) should have rights and there should be a protocol. I mean think about it, people who have low IQs or are scared (and did not commit a crime), are more likely to be perceived as guilty. Cops use the line of “if you lawyer up, your obviously guilty or have something to hide.” If I lawyer up, I’m protecting myself from ending up in prison for something I didn’t do.
With some of the scarier stuff to the side, I also want to talk about the brilliance of one of the detectives in the book. He is known as the walrus and honestly, I appreciated him when it came to how he worked the community. Detective Worden had that ability. He worked the streets for years, knew his people, and the people he didn’t know, he got to know. He knew all of the corners, all of the people, and the people in the community respected him for it. They didn’t play games with him. He engaged with the community which was and is huge. This is what we need more of in the police force, but just like educators they are spread so thin and are expected to do the job of 20 people. It’s damn near impossible.
Another instance of when the detectives were trying to do their best was when there was a deceased body in public for all to see. On pages 383 and 384 there is a dead black man. White cops stand around the body trying to protect it and preserve the crime scene. The crowd of mainly black community members view this as a public display of white supremacy but in actuality, it was just because there aren’t enough techs working that night. There is a misunderstanding between both groups and as the song goes “IT TAKES TWO TO MAKE A THING GO RIGHT.”
Yea you read that in song form. This song represents two different groups of people, two different social classes, two different lifestyles saying it takes both of us working together to solve a crime. I loved that part of the book where the song was playing in the background, two girls dancing to it. It was produced in 1988 and put forth a beat and message of “hey we gotta work together blacks and whites and we have to do it respectfully.”
Excellent Journalism
Being transported to a time where typewriters were commonly used and reporters could be at crime scenes and interrogation rooms, the author has his own sort of mantra that he abides by and it made me realize that true organic journalists really just want to report what they see as it is… “As a chronicler I will honor you with faithful reporting of what I see and hear while a guest in the house of your life. As for how you come off, you dig your own grave or build your own monument by being who you are, so good luck and thanks for your time,” (xiii). This quote exemplifies how David Smith wrote this book, what he took notes on, and how he documented each person whether a detective, witness, an everyday citizen, or criminal.
This was some definitely exemplary journalism from a twenty-something year old. That’s right I said it, twenty-something. Wow. I just spent most of my twenties in school or teaching, not writing a fucking manuscript on the Baltimore PD. That’s the note I wrote in the margins of the epilogue on page 620 and page 626 when it talked about how David Simon wrote his book. In regard to how he got approval to use the detective’s names in the book: “In order to obtain these releases, I promised the detectives and others that they would be allowed to review relevant portions of the manuscript and suggest changes for the purposes of accuracy. I also told the detectives that if there was something in the manuscript that was not essential to the story but that could nonetheless harm their careers or personal lives, they could ask that it be deleted and I would consider the request” [which he did a few times].
The one thing that I feel like I really appreciated was the realness of the situations and how everyone responded. It didn’t feel like it was politically correct to save face. David did a great job of writing exactly what the men said, even though sometimes it was really dark humor that may be viewed as inappropriate. However, you have to remember that these men and women are under extreme pressure at work and see things that humans shouldn’t see. The dark humor is a coping mechanism (one I am also very fond of using myself). Did I like it when Landsman and his men made inappropriate comments based on the dead body, the community, or the people they were forced to work with? No, but it also made me less uncomfortable while reading the details of these horrific crimes. Despite inappropriate comments, I do respect the fact that no matter the dead person’s color, way of life, social status, or social class, they still tried to solve the crime. They still tried to stand up for that person that no longer had a voice. Does that erase their sins? No, not at all. But they still tried to fight for justice.
This book taught me that solving a crime isn’t at all like what we see on CSI or Criminal Minds. A lot of crime shows try to find a motive first, but in reality, that isn’t how it works at a crime scene. The crime scene must do the talking first. What is there? What is missing? Where is the body? Why is it like this? What about blood splatter? Are there defensive wounds? Is there forced entry? So many questions like that need to be answered before they can even start looking at motive. It isn’t always a fairy tale ending where the criminal will be caught, the justice system will give them exactly what is deserved for the crime, and then on to the next case. It’s more like a shit show of 6 cases on your desk, some will be tossed to the side because others are more important, some will never get a lead, others will be solved instantly, while others will just gain cobwebs. Some will make it to court while others will never set foot in the courtroom. It honestly was so annoying when things weren’t solved, or were solved, but not brought to court, but that is the real world. And David Simon did a wonderful (and sometimes awful) way of shoving that in my face.
On pages 344 and 345 the writing is impeccable. Describing how the heat drives up the body count 10 to 20 percent. Just listen to this:
"The season is an endless street parade, with half the city out fanning itself on marble and stone stoops, waiting for a harbor breeze that never seems to make it across town. Summer is a four-to-twelve shift of nightsticks and Western District wagon runs, with three hundred hard cases on the Edmondson Avenue sidewalk between Payson and Pulaski, eye-fucking each other and every passing radio car. Summer is a ninety-minute backup in the Hopkins emergency room, an animal chorus of curses and pleases from the denizens of every district lockup, a nightly promise of yet another pool of blood on the dirty linoleum in yet another Federal Street carryout. Summer is a barroom cutting up on Druid Hill, a ten-minute gun battle in the Terrace, a daylong domestic dispute that ends with the husband and wife both fighting the cops. Summer is the season of motiveless murder, of broken-blade steak knives and bent tire irons; it’s the time for truly dangerous living, the season of massive and immediate retaliation, the 96- degree natural habitat of the Argument That Will Be Won."
Quite beautiful in its ugly way, right? It kind of reminds me of Moby Dick where Herman Melville could have just written a sentence or two of information, but insists on writing a whole paragraph or even page describing in detail the scene. Amazing and poetic writing.
I wanted to end my review with a part of the book that I sat on for a few days. 1) As a historian we know that we have to take the information we are given to decipher it IN IT’S TIME PERIOD and 2) we have to remember what events/ people were occurring/living during this time to help us have a better understanding of the work. We have to try and NOT judge them by today’s standards and 3) we have the power to change these things in our society, TODAY. Like I said, I was hung up on this paragraph written below for a couple of days. (637)
"This is not to say that everything I wrote was complimentary or ennobling. There are pages of the book on which these men appear to be racist or racially insensitive, sexist, or homophobic, where their humor derives from the poverty and tragedy of others. And yet with a body on the ground- black, brown, or, on rare occasion white- they did their job regardless. In this graceless age of ours, any sense of duty is remarkable enough to excuse any number of lesser sins. And so readers learned to forgive, just as the writer learned to forgive, and six hundred pages later the very candor of the detectives was a quality, rather than an embarrassment."
1)Deciphering was yes, they were still racist, sexist, and rough around the edges, in their time period, however, they still solved the larger sin, crimes of taking another’s life regardless of race. 2) This was a different time in which the times were still (ever so slowly) changing from the 60s, 70s, and the 80s when it came to major racial changes in American history. 3) I am hoping that people see it and want to change it TODAY. It is still happening, TODAY. It was a different time, and let’s take that information and run towards a brighter and better future for all.
If you are looking for a feel-good book, this is definitely not it. It is full of violent crimes, racism, sexism, the “ways” of a detective and it is just downright nitty and gritty. Again, it is from a journalistic standpoint (so they know how to tell a good story if they are any good), but also it has the inside scoop of what it looked like to be a detective/cop in the late 80s and early 90s. So, if you love TRUE crime, then this will be right up your ally. It will change your perspective on cop shows though! Trust me, I have already yelled at the screen that’s not how you do it several times!
IN CONCLUSION, READ THE FRACKING BOOK!
Up Next: Sparks of the Divine: Finding Inspiration in Our Everyday World by Drew Leder
