"John Connolly returns with a prequel that goes back to the very beginning of Private Investigator Charlie Parker's astonishing career with his first terrifying case"--

Welcome to the life of the Prince brothers. Come feel what it's like to be Addicted to a Dirty South Thug. Khian "Khi" Prince is a certified boss with what seems to be the weight of the world on his shoulders. His job is to ensure that he and his brothers maintain their status in the streets, along with caring for his two baby mamas and the kids he shares with them. After failing twice at love, Khi's not ready to give up on finding his queen just yet, and after running into Cuba Lance, he's certain he has finally gotten it right. When Cuba mends his heart only to shatter it all over again, will Khi give up on love once and for all, or will he fight to keep the woman who has everything he's been looking for? Daelan "Dae" Prince is the ultimate bad boy with pretty-boy looks and a no-nonsense type of attitude. He's feared by many men and lusted after by plenty of women. With Amber, the love of his life, and his 5-year-old son by his side, Daelan could have a happily-ever-after ending--except that he can't seem to stop messing up. Usually his loved ones are there to pick up the shattered pieces, but what happens when Daelan makes a decision that put the lives of everyone around him in danger? Kaedee Prince is known in the streets because of his brothers, but he's also known in the courtroom as one not to be messed with. With his wife Deonna by his side, they run the most sought-after law firm in the city. Kaedee knew his law degree would come in handy for his brothers, but he never expected that his wife would one day need his services. Hit with money laundering charges, Deonna learns that your past doesn't always stay behind you. When her ex shows up in her husband's office, Deonna finds herself in love with two men at the same time. She's forced to choose, but when that decision lands someone in a grave, are the Prince brothers ready for a war?

An ex-football player, turned blues historian, has twenty-four hours to save the life of his friend.

Director's foreword / Alex Nyerges -- What you know about the Dirty South? / Valerie Cassel Oliver -- a poem for black art / Fred Moten -- Landscape : the politics and poetics of dirt. Cosmic encounter / Charlie R. Braxton ; Bevery Buchanan : forms of ruination / Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, Jennifer Burris, and Park MacArthur ; Quilted beats bound at the rut : a theorization of the Dirty South / Regina N. Bradley ; Plates -- Systems of thought : the vision of envisioning. Songs that are sacred and pure (for Toni Morrison) / Charlie R. Braxton ; Dreaming empire, conjuring freedom : Renée Stout, African American landscape representation, and the imperial South / Kirsten Pai Buick ; Bible Belt swag : Houston hip-hop and Black religion / Anthony B. Pinn ; Dreaming of the South in stereo : Black music's American journey / Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr. ; Plates -- The Black body : repository/site/agent. Bluesosophy (for Julius Thompson) / Charlie R. Braxton ; Picturing the South : how photographers have imaged the region / Rhea L. Combs ; Changing the rules, the practice of pleasure : the linguistic possibilities of dirt / Roger Reeves ; Plates -- Epilogue. Code Black : the Dirty South / Paul D. Miller ; The Dirty South playlist ; Plates -- Artist biographies -- Contributor biographies -- Exhibition checklist and image credits.

"Private investigator Charlie Parker descends upon a strange, isolated community called the Cut, and will face down a force of men who rule by terror, intimidation, and murder."--Provided by publisher.

Brixton, twenty years after the race riots. Teenager Dennis Huggins drifts into the easy, dangerous life of the shotta - or drug dealer - and discovers that, hard as the struggle for respect on the streets is, the struggle for love is harder still. At least Dennis has involved parents looking out for him; too many of his friends drift through life with no positive influences or moral code; their only 'family' their fellow dealers. Wheatle brilliantly evokes the temptations of the thug life for young black men growing up in London's 'Dirty South' - this is a fast, compelling novel that offers no easy answers, but refuses to shy away from asking the difficult questions.

From the shutdown of Planned Parenthood clinics and rising rates of HIV to opposition to marriage equality and bathroom bills, the New South is the epicenter of the new sex wars. Antagonism toward reproductive freedom, partner rights, and transgender rights has revealed a new and unacknowledged era of southern reconstruction centered on gender and sexuality. In A Dirty South Manifesto, L. H. Stallings celebrates the roots of radical sexual resistance in the New South—a movement that is antiracist, decolonial, and transnational. For people within economically disenfranchised segments of society, those in sexually marginalized communities, and the racially oppressed, the South has been a sexual dystopia. Throughout this book, Stallings delivers hard-hitting manifestos for the new sex wars. With her focus on contemporary Black southern life, Stallings offers an invitation to anyone who has ever imagined a way of living beyond white supremacist heteropatriarchy.