by Frank Lucas. An act of shocking violence witnessed by the six-year-old Frank Lucas opens this spellbinding memoir by one of Harlem's most famous heroin smugglers. Growing up in 1930s North Carolina, Lucas turned to a life of crime to support his family. He made his way to New York, getting by on petty theft and street crime, until the gangster Bumpy Johnston took him under his wing. Lucas rose quickly in the underworld, taking a tremendous risk to smuggle heroin himself and earning a staggering profit by cutting out the middlemen. He counted many a politician, entertainer, and sports figure among his friends, and his story inspired the 2007 movie American Gangster, starring Denzel Washington. But, finally, his lifestyle attracted the wrong kind of attention, and he found himself sentenced to 70 years in prison. He was paroled after five years but later served further time for another conviction. Here he expresses remorse for the lives that were ruined by the product he sold, but the overall tone is a fond remembrance of a life lived in the fast lane. VERDICT With the connection to American Gangster, this should be a hit with movie buffs as well as true-crime fans. --Library Journal.
(Check Catalog)
