GOT THAT GET BACK!

In JoJo’s thriller, money tempts a man to resume a life of crime.

Dread is released from a ten-year prison sentence and re-enters his old life. He wants to pick up some of his dropped connections and immediately seeks out his former girlfriend, Aisha (“the streets knew her as Udding”), who welcomes him with surprise and affection. He also visits his father, who tells him he loves him and urges him to keep his nose clean. Returning to Udding’s place as she’s cooking an elaborate meal to welcome him home, Dread briefly dreams about continuing to live such a contented life. But his need for money and thrills draws him almost at once back into his old life, when he was well-known as a cool neighborhood drug dealer (“I reach in my pocket and pull out now and later,” he thinks. “No matter how hot or cold it was, everyone knew I stayed with some candy. I called them street treats”). He tracks down his old friend, Cool P (“I used to push dope out of his sister’s place”), and, in quick stages, he’s not only thrown back into the kind of life that got him incarcerated in the first place but plunged even deeper into dark places of street violence and murder. The text is littered with typos (“tounge” for “tongue,” “way’s” for “ways,” “Law and order” for “Law & Order,” “robbary’s” for “robberies,” “pated me down” for “patted me down”; there’s something on almost every page), and the “street” language used by the characters is often stilted (“You still sexy to me, even doe you won’t let me hit that thang”). Readers don’t get to know Dread well enough to care all that much whether or not he ends up back in prison.

A slangy, sloppy, plot-driven tale of urban crime.