This one is a hard book for me to rate, since the writing is well-done. Leovy draws you into the day-to-day life of various homicide detectives at the LA Police Dept. Choosing to focus on following the police was fascinating as she dove into the issue of black-on-black murder in South LA during some of its most violent times.

That being said, I had a really hard time getting behind her premise, which was that black people aren't punished swiftly or effectively enough after a homicide happens. She keeps trying to draw distinctions between "killers" and other people, but then will turn around and admit how there are not really "innocent" victims in the sense that we might think and how the whole community is intrinsically connected. It just seemed like she hadn't really worked out all the parts of her theory, but as I said, the writing itself is good and the plot is interesting — reads a bit like a fictional crime thriller in many parts.