LA Times Reporter Leovy had started the Los Angeles Times' Homicide Report blog several years ago, using it as a forum to acknowledge every murder committed in Los Angeles County, to give "a story for every victim." In the book, the author starts with a similar approach but then switches gears and digs deeply into the story of one particular murder, and focuses on one particular detective.While this approach is still very interesting and compellingly readable, it weakens the book, taking it from the great down to merely good. Ghettoside is at its best when the author is looking at all the stories, exploring and explaining (at least in part) the long history of racism, discrimination, and poverty in Los Angeles that created both the shockingly high murder rate for young black men and the indifferent response by the public and the police to those murders. Still I strongly recommended the book for anyone seeking rational discussion of the high rates of violent crime in poorer communities around the country, and the seemingly uncaring response by the surrounding community and some police departments.
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