A Good Month for Murder - by Del Quentin Wilber (Paperback)

About the Book

"Twelve homicides, three police-involved shootings and a 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. He rides with a hard-charging investigator who pops diet pills while devouring cheeseburgers; he stands over a corpse with a hulking investigator who works security at a cemetery to earn extra money; he spends hours in the interrogation room--a.k.a. "the box"--with a chain-smoking vegan determined to solve the most difficult case of his career. And then, after a quiet couple of months, all hell breaks loose: suddenly every detective in the squad is working day and night to solve one shooting and stabbing after another. In particular, the entire unit becomes obsessed with a "red ball," a high-profile case involving a 17-year-old honor student attacked by a gunman who kicked down the door to her house and murdered 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"--

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

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

"The book is briskly paced. . . . Wilber, a former Washington Post reporter, is painstaking in tracing how the detectives go about their fieldwork. The cat-and-mouse games they play with suspects in the interrogation room are fascinating." --The Washington Post

"Excellent . . . Mr. Wilber has a keen reporter's eye and ear for detail and a deft pen that sometimes skewers with funny yet unstinting prose the very detectives who granted him entrée to their world. . . . Wilber gets high marks for placing readers smack inside the world of his characters--in the stuffy, fluorescent-lit homicide offices, the bloody murder scenes, and the claustrophobic interview rooms as detectives cajole, intimidate, and banter with witnesses." --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Wilber is a former veteran Baltimore Sun and Washington Post reporter who spent one cold February in 2013 tailing . . . this group of hardened but dedicated detectives, bent on justice but beset by impossible odds. It's like David Simon's The Wire--urgent but cold-eyed and tragic--and it's all true." --Men's Fitness

"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

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 the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.