The first novel in the Kenyatta series, Goines lays bare the bloody, brutal reality of the black ghetto with a voice that has shaped hip hop culture. Prison buddies Billy Good and Jackie Walker made time pulling small jobs here and there. Not a bad living if you like scraping by. When Billy and Jackie fell in with Kenyatta, a ghetto lord ready to take back the streets, they thought they'd hit the big time. But in a world where 'kindess was the sweetest con of all', every bullet fired echoed with the sound of payback.