Available as eBook
Behind the scenes and onto the streets with one of the most acclaimed series of all time
‘… All in the game.’ West Baltimore Traditional
THE WIRE has been widely hailed as the greatest television series of all time.
It portrays the war of attrition between Baltimore’s hardened police force and its drug dealers, and the blurring of good and evil, justice and injustice, right and wrong that happens every day as men and women struggle against the institutions they are bound up in.
Over its five series it has built up a detailed, rich and layered portrait of Baltimore: from its corner boys touting dope and its dock workers facing extinction, through the strained education system and tainted halls of power, to the crumbling media establishment.
Rafael Alvarez - a reporter, essayist and staff writer for the show - brings the reader inside this world, detailing many of the real-life incidents and personalities that have inspired the show’s storylines and characters. Packed with photographs and featuring an introduction by series creator and executive producer David Simon, as well as essays by acclaimed authors George Pelecanos, Ed Burns, Richard Price, Laura Lippman and Denis Lehane, it covers all fives series in glorious detail.
“Not the usual coffee-table photo book, but something substantial, complex, honest, challenging, revealing, funny and also unprecedented, unique - a book, in other words, worthy of THE WIRE.”
Tony Kushner
See more reviews
“One of the greatest works of television of all time.”
independent
“You either love THE WIRE, or haven’t seen it.”
guardian Guide
“A vital part of the television landscape.”
new York Times
“THE WIRE, like its underfunded, workaday cops, just plugged away until it outshone everything else on TV.”
time
David Simon & Rafael Alvarez
Rafael Alvarez is a novelist based in his native Baltimore. He learned to write on the city desk of the BALTIMORE SUN. He is the author of ORLO AND LEINI MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN and occasionally works as a laborer on ships crewed by the Seafarers International Union. He has been a writer on all of THE WIRE’s five seasons.