Riding Dirty on I-95

In this gritty, fast-paced street tale with heart, a feisty young woman searches for passion, love and understanding while she hustles for survival. Mercy Jiles was a Daddy's girl until the age of seven, when gangsters murdered her father over a gambling debt. This loss, and her mother's neglect, defines Mercy's tough character, which is further shaped by subsequent years in an abusive foster care system. On her 18th birthday, she determines to make a life for herself in the inner city of Richmond, Va., where she meets a ghetto-fabulous drug-dealer-turned-murderer, C-Note. Social vulnerability, financial straits and materialistic ambitions lead her to transport drugs along the titular highway. Broke, unhappy but ever resourceful, Mercy leaves her life of crime for a career as a screenwriter, turning her shady experiences into successful movies. C-Note and Mercy cross paths again once Mercy has gone Hollywood and find a twisted redemption in one another, but their tangled pasts threaten their future. Turner (The Glamorous Life) offers a vivid, nonjudgmental glimpse into a world of broken ambitions, backstabbers and self-loathers, where violence, crime and greed are flaunted as the keys to a better life. (Apr. 25)