Look, for instance, at Omar, the cold-hearted but effortlessly cool stick-up artist in The Wire who makes a living by identifying, then robbing at gunpoint, the stash houses of the neighbourhood drug gangs. One could say, at the risk of antagonising the show's fanatical fans, that it tends slightly to romanticise it. For once, the drama does not exaggerate the reality. Reading The Corner, having watched all five series of The Wire, is an unnerving experience. Paradoxically, given that the book is, among other things, a fierce polemic against drug prohibition, he won. It reserves its not inconsiderable anger and scorn for the politicians who, in Wire parlance, 'juke the stats' - manipulate the crime figures for personal gain.įamously, the democratic candidate for mayor of Baltimore, Martin O'Malley, campaigning on an anti-drug ticket, brandished a copy of the book while making a speech on the corner of the title in 1999. It tracks the lives of several players in Baltimore's drug demi-monde and of some of the hard-working, hard-bitten cops who try in vain to police the corners.

The Corner, which was originally published in the US in 1997, is the book that spawned The Wire. Likewise, the dealers, the cops, the hustlers and the politicians: all the venal, murderous, muddle-headed and heroic individuals whose fictionalised alter-egos have so mesmerised viewers on both sides of the Atlantic. Anyone who has seen The Wire, Simon and Burns's equally epic and labyrinthine police drama, will be familiar with the crucial role played by children - not just teenagers, but their even younger siblings - in the distribution of heroin and crack cocaine on Baltimore's most notorious corners.

The Corner by David Simon