I’ve been
an avid Eric Jerome Dickey fan for many years. He has mastered an addictive
fiction formula that pulls you into a story filled with characters readers both
love and love to hate. Sometimes the characters and their motivations will have you scratching your
head and at times you can totally understand why they do the
things they do.
Anyway, let’s dive into this novel which is the prequel to Bad Men and Wicked Women which I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed. When I first met the main character Ken Swift and his sidekick, Jake Ellis, I knew I found a dynamic duo I would love to learn more about. Ken and Jake are debt collectors (enforcers) for San Bernardino. At the heart of the first book was the complications of Ken Swift’s daughter Margaux, now a young woman walking into his life after several years. Why? Because her mother, Jimi Lee after divorcing him, whisked Margaux away from him as a child in effort to get back into the good graces of her Ethiopian family.
In the prequel, readers meet twenty-one-year-old Ken Swift and eighteen-year old Harvard-bound, Jimi Lee. They met when Ken was on a job at Club Fetish and what started out as a one-night stand turned into hot, heavy and stolen moments of sex shrouded in Jimi Lee’s lies to her strict Ethiopian parents. When she became pregnant, she was kicked out of her parents’ home, taken in by Ken and then got married.
Eric did an awesome job capturing the essence of two young people living it up in the nineties in LA: carefree, sexy, political, cultural and uncomplicated before it became complicated with a child and a marriage. Jimi Lee was uncontrollable, manipulative, selfish, egotistical, disrespectful, and unpredictable as she teetered between her family traditions and loving Ken Swift. When the marriage ended, the sexual trysts continued and so too was Jimi Lee’s blackmail for more money (child support) to keep Ken’s secret. Despite the complications of loving Jimi Lee, I like that Ken remained honorable toward his daughter.
I learned a lot about the Ethiopian culture, customs, and etiquette. I also loved how EJD drew parallelism between what was happening with Ken and Jimi with the movie, The Lover. This movie featured a French teenage girl who embarked on a forbidden romance with a wealthy and older Chinese man which like the characters’ romance had drastic consequences.
Overall, two thumbs way up. However, there were two instances I wished EJD had explored more: 1) on one occasion when Ken called Jimi Lee he noted she was giggling and happy and he knew she was lying about who she was talking to, but he didn’t confront her about this and 2) when Ken didn’t try to go back to college at UCLA even when Jake Ellis went back to Africa and received a degree.
Nevertheless, great dialogue, great scenes, and great descriptions (capturing the feel, sights, smells, sounds of LA). I hope to see Ken Swift and Jake Ellis again.
My favorite lines:
“You said
I was your fantasy, so I guess you were mine.”
“I’m doing
things that would anger my parents. Hey want me to live in a world with no
boys, an intellectual world filled with books until I somehow suddenly end up
at the alter getting married after I achieve my PhD.”
“You’re
staying out beyond your curfew.”
“Until the very last moment. Tonight, I feel so free. I’ve never stayed out past one in the morning.” She hummed, shifted like she need to go but was enjoying being on parole too much. “I live under someone else’s roof and they have a million rules. My day starts no later than six in the morning. Cooking. Cleaning. Do this; do that. They hate to see me relaxing for one second. The always treat me like I am a damned child.”
Rating: 4.5 Stars
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