A Good Month for Murder: The Inside Story of a Homicide Squad

Wilber, Del Quentin

3.67

681 ratings by Goodreads

9781427260819: A Good Month for Murder: The Inside Story of a Homicide Squad

ISBN 10: 1427260818 ISBN 13: 9781427260819

Publisher: Macmillan Audio, 2016

Bestselling author Del Quentin Wilber tells the inside story of how a homicide squad---a dedicated, colorful team of detectives―does its almost impossible job

Twelve homicides, three police-involved shootings and the furious hunt for an especially brutal killer--February 2013 was a good month for murder in suburban Washington, D.C.

After gaining unparalleled access to the homicide unit in Prince George's County, which borders the nation's capital, Del Quentin Wilber begins shadowing the talented, often quirky detectives who get the call when a body falls. After a quiet couple of months, all hell breaks loose: suddenly every detective in the squad is scrambling to solve one shooting and stabbing after another. Meanwhile, the entire unit is obsessed with a stone-cold "red ball," a high-profile case involving a seventeen-year-old honor student attacked by a gunman who kicked down the door to her house and shot her in her bed.

Murder is the police investigator's ultimate crucible: to solve a killing, a detective must speak for the dead. More than any recent book, A Good Month for Murder shows what it takes to succeed when the stakes couldn't possibly be higher.

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About the Author:

Del Quentin Wilber is the New York Times-bestselling author of Rawhide Down, an account of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. An award-winning reporter who previously worked for The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post, he now covers the justice department for Bloomberg News. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

Review:

"Superb--one of the best real-life cop books ever written."―Lee Child

"With this engrossing and compelling account of the reality of crime and policing, Del Quentin Wilber affirms his place as one of the nation's most accomplished writers of first-rate narrative nonfiction. Put away your mysteries and thrillers--this is the real thing, rendered with grit and with grace."―Jon Meacham, author of American Lion and Destiny and Power

"A Good Month for Murder is utterly absorbing. Wilber's clear-eyed, discerning book does justice to both the homicide detectives he shadowed and the victims they speak for. Highly recommended."―Sgt. Adam Plantinga, Edgar-nominated author of 400 Things Cops Know

"Del Quentin Wilber's A Good Month for Murder presents a great few hours of reading for anyone interested in peeling back the screen of myth and romance to get at the harsh and visceral reality of homicide investigation."―Stephen Hunter, author of The Third Bullet and Sniper's Honor

"A meticulously reported account of an intrepid reporter’s embedded months with a homicide squad. Unfiltered and raw, A Good Month for Murder reads like a cross between Michael Connelly’s fiction and David Simon's classic, Homicide."―Neal Thompson, author of A Curious Man and Driving with the Devil

"This is the real cop story--not a TV show, not fiction, not a political diatribe. A Good Month for Murder is a deeply reported, compelling, timely account of what it's like to be a homicide detective working in the shadows of the nation's capital."―David Maraniss, author of Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story

"We're practically deluged by television 'procedural' shows that purport to tell us about the lives of homicide detectives. But what's it like, in real life, to be one? Here, in this resourcefully reported and richly nuanced work, we see the everyday challenges, feel the mounting pressures and frustrations, and experience the occasional eureka moments―up close, on gritty streets, in neighborhoods gripped by fresh and terrible crimes that are all too real. Del Quentin Wilber has a rare talent for fly-on-the-wall reportage, and with A Good Month For Murder his skills are on full display."―Hampton Sides, author of Hellhound On His Trail and In the Kingdom of Ice

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