 A storyline in the book involving Brown's cracking a very difficult hit-and-run homicide was included almost verbatim in the show's pilot.Barry Levinson, co-creator and executive producer of "Homicide", said Belzer was a "lousy actor" during his audition when he first read lines from the script for "Gone for Goode", the first episode in the series.Levinson asked Belzer to take some time to reread and practice the material, then come back and read it again.