SHETANI'S SISTER

The street war between a prostitution ring and the cop determined to take it down turns into a man-to-man fight.

When a long-awaited vacation takes Sgt. Russell Rucker away from the streets of LA and his usual routine of busting hos and their respective pimps, he recommends his longtime protégé, Leo Crane, to take his spot as leader of the squad in his absence. Unbeknownst to Rucker, Crane has become deeply involved in the drug scene, using the finest coke he can score to escape his otherwise humdrum existence. Crane uses his new power to blackmail snow blonde Petra, the main woman of the dangerous and mentally unstable pimp Master Shetani. In exchange for access to her and a drug stash, Crane agrees to provide Petra with plate numbers for cops on the squad. The result is a surge in prostitution and a dip in busts so low that Rucker is recalled early from his vacation. Rucker is determined to find the man controlling the stable of women on the streets. At the same time, Master Shetani has an obsession of his own. A new woman in his stable reminds him of his dead-too-young sister, Tuta, and he resolves to relive his brotherly role with her. As powers between these characters shift, ancillary adversaries and assistants come and go, typically in violent interchanges. These fatality rates require the final chapters of the saga to add an all-new cast; otherwise, there’d be only two or three characters alive to finish the game of cat and mouse.

The latest posthumous publication from Iceberg Slim (Doom Fox, 1998, etc.) may satisfy readers hungry for the gritty street reality of an undefined historical time, but the storyline ends so abruptly that it feels as unfinished as the author’s life.