Kings of Vice

Rapper and actor Ice-T makes his coauthored fiction debut with a crime thriller that gets off to a strong start. When Marcus "Crush" Casey, ex-leader of a New York City street gang, the Vicetown Kings, is released from Attica after serving 20 years, he's eager to take revenge on his former second-in-command, Gulliver Rono, who both betrayed Casey to the Feds and murdered his son. But Casey, who used his time in stir to bone up on philosophers such as Sun Tzu, has plans beyond payback. He also wants to regain control of the Vicetown Kings, "a loose collection of dope slangers and hustlers," which he had built into a national organization. More ambitiously, and improbably, Casey aims to unite all U.S. organized crime. The book loses further credibility as Casey, in an effort to become some sort of good citizen, strives to help New York recover from 9/11 by making drug dealers and hit men part of a regulated community. (Sept.)