With The Corner David Simon and Ed Burns have produced a fine journalistic example of documenting a living culture - the drug trade in one small area of Baltimore in 1993 - in a descriptively interesting manner that sheds some light on the whys and hows of the situation. As with Homicide you are immersed in the world of these people and you are horrified at the differences between you and them but at no point are they held up for ridicule; Simon and Burns are largely sympathetic in their honest portrayal of this lifestyle as only writers who have lived amongst their subjects truly can be.

My only problem is with my expectations, due to its links with the second greatest TV show ever made I wanted a book from both sides of this struggle, cops and robbers so to speak, and I didn't get that.