I am in love with the back story of these books, at least as I have heard it. Renay Jackson, according to his bio, has been a custodian for the Oakland police department for over 25 years; he is also a former rapper and a “street lit author,” whatever that is. I read somewhere that he started writing these books with his kids while they were doing their homework and still sits down and writes for 30 minutes a night after dinner, just like a kid doing his homework. Before he had a publisher, he and his friends would sell the books on the bus in Oakland.

The books are compulsively-readable, pulpy murder mysteries set among drug dealers in East and West Oakland. They sort of remind me of Elmore Leonard; it is that same sort of thing where there are eight million characters and you are following the stories of the murderers and the victims and the police all at the same time. I love all of the local detail of course. I lived in Oakland for years and I am always reading it like, “Yeah, I know that highway exit! I get stuck in traffic there all the time!” Perhaps this would be boring if I did not have so much love for Oakland.

I have a few beefs with the book, like there are so many characters with similar sounding names that I have trouble keeping track of everybody. Maybe if there were a table of characters at the front of the book like in some of the Great Books I remember reading in elementary school. Also, and maybe I am just a prude, but I could do without the long, weird sex scenes including sentences like “He slammed his battering ram into her all night long.” Again, I suppose that is just a personal preference.

But the books are like I say compulsively readable. What have I learned that I should apply to my own meager efforts? I like his fast-paced action combined with lots of little detail about the characters’ lives so you feel like you really know them. Also, I should go easy on long extremely detailed romantic interludes with lots of analogies to power tools in case any of my many readers have delicate sensibilities like mine. Also, maybe readers love lots of references to Oakland geography. Or maybe that’s just me.