RaveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksThat Leovy is able to rely so heavily on external sources and perspectives is a testament to her journalistic experience and expertise. As I well know, oftentimes first-person meta-commentary is a cheap trick designed to gloss over inadequacies of research. Leovy, however, needs no such misdirection. She has done the work. She knows the neighborhoods and the people. She’s been to the hospitals, to the police stations, to the homes of the victims, to the scenes of the crime. In Ghettoside, you can practically smell the shoe leather. The reporting is so thorough, so detailed — the physical description at times verging on the photorealistic — that I found myself marveling, wondering, and even doubting. How the hell did she get all this?
