A few months ago me and my roommates got addicted to a television series called The Wire. If you’ve seen it, you know. If not, it’s essentially a 5 season police drama series about Baltimore. Each season is a story unto itself- one is about politics, one education, one the fishing industry, and one the gang life. They all overlap into each other, and that’s part of the fun. The essential story of the Wire is that there are an infinite number of connections between what happens in a city, and that no one is all innocent or all guilty. One of the writers for the Wire is Richard Price, and he continues to pull off the magic of urban realism and intricately connected crime in the Lush Life.

The book begins with a murder, as is the format for the modern cop drama. From there it profiles Eric Cash, a restaurant manager who always wanted more out of life. He’s the initial main suspect for the killing. Of course, in the same way that the guy who looks like he’s going to win doesn’t win in a WWE match, Eric didn’t do it. But what happens after that is a case study on psychology of what happens when people get knocked around mentally- first he’s witness to a shooting, then he’s the main suspect, then he’s cleared and he realizes his life isn’t at all what he wanted. So what does he want?

While that’s happening, the cops are dealing with bureaucratic issues that are common to every cop drama I’ve ever seen, the parents of the victim are freaking out, and the police are turning over every rock and looking in every nook and cranny in the city. The kids we meet are dealing with drugs, abusive parents, shame, hope, and what it means to live in the projects.

What I loved about the Wire and what I love about this book is that both of them kept the story moving while always, always digging into their characters at every turn. Nobody is a static character here. He does start off with stereotypes- the disgruntled cop, the party kid, the distraught father, the gangsta kid- but he doesn’t leave it that way. They all change from good to bad to lost to found often enough that you realize Price gets what Shakespeare was saying when he talked about the world being a stage and all of us merely being players.

In Price’s world, that stage is full of characters who have secrets and desires far beyond their interactions with each other, and we get to see them, without losing the action that changes everytime you turn the page. My point is, you get character development as good as any book, and you get action as good as an Action flick on HBO (did I just date myself there? Well, the Wire was an HBO original series, so that’s the connection).

Read this book. Take it on the bus with you, take it to bed, take it to work and sneak it on your lunch break. It’s like that.

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