Criminal Minded

Tracy Brown's book, which is action packed from front to back, is fittingly set in early '90's New York City. Lamin who is the protagonist of the story is brought as in a middle class family but dreams of a world with a lot more. After the imprisonment of his dear cousin Curtis at a young age, he turns to a life of crime. He plans on selling drugs to become the "man on the block". With this in mind, he turn to the " new kid on the block", a kid by the name of Zion.

Zion and Curtis, in a sense, are worlds apart. Curtis is locked up in a high security penitentiary. Zion is living the good life as free man and getting away with just about anything. However, one thing they have in common is love for Lamin. When Curtis went to jail, Zion stepped right in as Lamin's right-hand man. The more and more money they make together selling drugs, the closer of a bond they form. Pushing Curtis farther and father out of the picture.Curtis resents Zion for this alone and put pressure on Lamin. Proving that main antagonist are Curtis and Zion, along with the greed of going the wrong direction for money.

Eventually Curtis returns home for good and cannot stand to see his best friend making money without him. He feels ashamed to ask or take money, although Lamin offers freely. It does not help that every second he is reminded by Zion that he is just a broke jail rat. He keeps this inside until he cannot stand it any longer. He does the worst thing one can do on the streets of New York. He tells the cops about Lamin's narcotics empire.

This inevitably leads to the climax of the book which is a confrontation of all three guys in a club. After Curtis reveals that he did "snitch" on his own blood shots rang out in middle of a Manhattan club. Curtis shot Zion and then Lamin shot Curtis. It left Curtis dead and Zion severely wounded.

It took this to realize that a life of drug dealing was not for him. He had started out selling drugs to not end up like his cousin in jail. Now he was the one who had ended his cousins life. He had grown form being a confused child to a confused adult. He had finally come full circle and reached a resolution.

The theme of this book is probably that you have to be content with yourself before you worry any and everything else. Lamin was so mixed up in doing right by everyone else and he never really