The life of a homicide cop is death with many causes: death for love, death forhate, death for revenge, death for money or death for no reason at all. Thehomicide cop's worst nightmare is death by a serial killer with a plan. This grittyand fast moving story of a search for such a killer is a realistic portrayal of homicideinvestigation written by a former homicide detective who has been there.I was a homicide investigator during the time frame of this novel and I amimpressed with the detail and account of both the technical and routine phasesof murder investigations as we did them ''back in the day.''Gerald R. BeaversFormer Chief of Police, Asheville, North Carolina and Topeka, KansasA fresh homicide on the street. Grab your pen and notebook and get to thescene. Beat the bushes. Talk to the street cops who show up. Talk to thestreet people whose trust you have developed over the years - bartenders,prostitutes, crooks, store owners.The drums are beating in the neighborhood. People are talking. Get the rightinformation and you solve the case. No DNA; no C. S. I.; no cell phones; no onlineinformation sources. No psychological profi les other than the knowledgeand memory of sharp cops. No scientifi c interrogation techniques other thanexperience and knowledge of human nature. We found the killers and we putthem away.This is the way it was in the late 1960's and Ed Mercer captures the tableauperfectly. The Dead Stroll is a nostalgia trip for those of us who walked thewalk and talked the talk in those days and a historical document for thosecops currently working homicides - an authentic depiction of how it was. Thescenes of riot and turmoil in the streets, the pressures of external and internalpolitics, the cops' wit and crisp dialogue are all vivid and real.