Death List

Donald Goines continues the gripping, gritty story of crime in the black ghetto begun in Crime Partners.



They're all back for blood: Kenyatta, the ganglord with an army of brothers to deal deadly with crooked cops and dope dealers; Benson and Ryan, a black and white detective team, desperate in their fight to stop the black crime wave. It's doomsday when Kenyatta joins them in a war against a secret list of drug pushers.



In his five-year literary career, Donald Goines provided perhaps the most sustained, multifaceted, realistic fiction picture ever created by one author of the lives, choices, and frustrations of the underworld ghetto blacks. Almost single-handedly, Goines established the conventions and the popular momentum for a new fictional genre, which could be called ghetto realism. -Greg Goode, University of Rochester

Donald Goines was born in Detroit, Michigan. He joined the U.S. Air Force instead of going into his family's dry cleaning business. Following his service, he entered into a life of drug addiction and crime. He received seven prison sentences, serving a total of over six years. While he was in prison, Goines wrote his first two novels, Dopefiend: The Story of a Black Junkie and Whoreson: The Story of a Ghetto Pimp. Goines was shot to death in 1974.

About Donald Goines