Reddit mentions of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

The Wire is a TV show but the depiction of the Baltimore Police Department is informed by David Simon embedding inside the Homocide unit for a full year which resulted in a book: http://www.amazon.com/Homicide-Killing-Streets-David-Simon-ebook/dp/B003J4VELI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417802133&sr=8-1&keywords=homocide+david+simon

Many of the events which occur in the show are based upon real stories from this book (one example which springs to mind is the use of the copy machine as a polygraph) and several characters are based upon real BPD detectives (Jay Landsman being the most prominent one).

http://www.amazon.com/Homicide-Killing-Streets-David-Simon-ebook/dp/B003J4VELI

http://www.amazon.com/Corner-Year-Life-Inner-City-Neighborhood-ebook/dp/B00BH0VT48

Doesn't get much more "similar to The Wire".

David Simon wrote for the Baltimore Sun long before he wrote the Wire. He embedded himself in the homicide unit to write the book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. That book was turned into Homicide, life on the streets, but he never liked how the cop drinking whiskey was turned into a cop drinking milk, the sexism was washed out, the swearing was cleaned up, and the indifference of the police officers was turned into stereotypical heroism. He went on to write The Corner, which was a moderate success for what it was trying to do, which enabled him to write his magnum opus, The Wire.

Little known facts:

The Wire was based mostly on his experiences as a journalist and author. A lot of the scenes are taken verbatim from his book.

A lot of characters are played by the characters themselves. Police officers are actually police officers, I believe one of the homicide detectives was actually the police chief at the time.

The deacon character was played by Marvin "Little Marvin" Williams, who was a kingpin during Simon's time as a journalist and author.

The actress who played Snoop took up acting while she was in prison for murder as a teenager. After the shows release, she used the money she made to set up shop on a corner, and she was sent back to prison for drug dealing.

The series of articles that David Simon wrote about Marvin Williams, Easy Money: The Anatomy of a Drug Empire, is available here.

Shameless plug for /r/TheWire.

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