Philippe Squarzoni spent most of his childhood in Ardèche and the island of Réunion, France. He has traveled internationally to participate in several humanitarian and anti-war campaigns. The author of many political graphic novels, his work includes Garduno, en temps de paix, Zapata, en temps de guerre, Dol, Un après-midi un peu couvert, and Saison brune, which received the Jury Prize at the Festival de Lyon and the Prix Léon de Rosen from the Académie française for its contribution to environmental awareness. Saison brune was later published in English as Climate Changed: A Personal Journey Through the Science.

David Simon is a Baltimore-based journalist, author, and television producer. A former crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun, he is the creator of the celebrated HBO series The Wire, which depicts the political and socioeconomic fissures in an American city. His other television credits include the NBC drama Homicide and HBO's The Corner, Generation Kill, Treme, Show Me a Hero, The Deuce, and The Plot Against America. The author of the narrative nonfiction books Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, Simon is a 2010 MacArthur Fellow.

"The illustrated book from French graphic novelist Philippe Squarzoni, published this week--as adapted from the
original in consultation with [David] Simon--is as beautifully stark as the hard-boiled Hollywood adaptations of another former Baltimore Sun reporter, legendary noir author James M. Cain." --The Washington Post

"A stark, arresting graphic novel that weds Simon's account of facts and police personalities (alongside ample use of the quoted dialogue he preserved as well as his own descriptive prose) to visual and storytelling techniques somewhat reminiscent of Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Andreyko's Torso: an unflinching depiction of a city at its darkest, conveyed in deep shadows and shades of gray." --Popverse