Is Jamie Fox the Greg Packer of crime stories? Here's what he told the Globe for a story about a recent series of homicides in Boston where some fear it could be a violent summer.

Nearly 20 percent of the 480,000 homicides in the United States from 1976 to 2001 occurred in July and August, Fox said. ''It may be more of an issue of lifestyle than of temperature,'' he said. ''The heat can create tensions, but the warm weather creates more interactions between neighbors and strangers.''

So nearly 20% of murders in a twelve month period occur in two months. I looked at the numbers for 94-98 (a smaller sampling than Fox uses) and the homicide average for July was 8.9%. August was 9.2%. That works out to about 18.1%. Those two months contain 17% of the days of the year.

Is 18 nearly 20 when you start at 17? I guess it all depends on the message you want to convey. In any case, saying that murders for the coming long hot summer, might normally be expected to be only about one percentage point over the average isn't exactly the stuff of compelling news stories.