SOCIAL SCIENCES

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

by Del Quentin Wilber
Holt. Jun. 2016. 320p. ISBN 9780805098815. $30; ebk. ISBN 9780805098822. CRIME
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Wilber (Rawhide Down) delves into how the homicide squad for Prince George's County, MD, scrambled to solve 12 murders and three police-involved shootings in February 2013. It was pure chance that the author was involved in the events of this deadly month. Given full access to the squad with the provision that the police department could review the manuscript prior to publication, Wilber agreed to the condition as long as he had full editorial control. To protect the witnesses, some names were changed. He provides the reactions and personalities of the detectives working on the cases and mentions that owing to space constraints not all incidents that occurred in the specified period were included in this account.
VERDICT The book is written like a novel and put together via time sequence—and therein lies the problem, as the narrative's continuity becomes choppy and at times hard to follow. No doubt Wilber has the expertise to pen these accounts, but the presentation is a turn off. Pass on this purchase.
Reviewed by Michael Sawyer, Pine Bluff, AR , Feb 15, 2016
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