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The I Index

We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption

Next in the queue

66

/100

I Index Overall Rating

Readers

80/100

Critics

53/100

Scholars

N/A

Author:

Justin Fenton

Publisher:

Random House

Date:

February 23, 2021

The true story of a Baltimore police corruption scandal from the Pulitzer Prize–nominated reporter who exposed a gang of criminal cops and their yearslong plunder of an American city.

What The Reviewers Say

Michael A. Fletcher,
The Washington Post
It’s an old story line that somehow never gets old.
Sarah Weinman,
The Wall Street Journal
... takes its time, unspooling the history of the Gun Trace Task Force. Mr. Fenton is after more than the portrait of a few malcontents.
Maurice Chammah,
The New York Times Book Review
Clearly inspired by The Wire, Fenton populates his narrative with a network of officers, informants and street dealers, all with different motivations and interests. Some of these personalities come through more vividly than others, but the overall effect is to capture the disorienting, churning quality of a city where the good guys and bad guys aren’t easily distinguished.
Gary Younge,
London Review of Books (UK)
In We Own This City Justin Fenton tells a story of bad people and bad attitudes, but—whether he intends to or not—his book reveals the way systemic discrimination operates, whom it affects and how it is sustained. His narrative is brisk and engaging.