Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

This article is about the journalistic book. For the series initially so named, see Homicide: Life on the Street.
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
AuthorDavid Simon
LanguageEnglish
GenreCrime
PublisherHoughton Mifflin
Publication date
June 1991
Publication placeUnited States
Pages608
ISBN0-395-48829-X
OCLC23356235
363.2/59523/097526 20
LC ClassHV8148.B22 S54 1991

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets is a 1991 book written by Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon describing a year spent with detectives from the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit. The book received the 1992 Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category.[1]

The book was subsequently fictionalized as the NBC television drama Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–99), on which Simon served as a writer and producer. Many of the key detectives and incidents portrayed in the book provided inspiration for the first two seasons of the show, with other elements surfacing in later seasons as well. It later also provided inspiration for Simon's HBO television series The Wire (2002–08).

  1. ^ "Edgar Award Archives". Mystery Writers of America. Archived from the original on 2006-09-15. Retrieved 2006-09-29.