Books about Ex drug from Amazon.com

Jeff Henderson was just another inner-city black kid born into a world of poverty and limited options, where crime seemed to provide the only way to get out. Raised mostly by his single mother, who struggled just to keep food on the table, Jeff dreamed big. He had to get out and he soon did by turning to what so many in his community did: dealing drugs. But Jeff was no ordinary drug dealer; by twenty-one, he was one of the top cocaine dealers in San Diego, making up to $35,000 a week. Two years later he was indicted on federal drug trafficking charges and sentenced to almost twenty years in prison. Before he knew what had hit him, he was looking at spending most of his life behind bars. The street life had been the only one he'd ever known and even incarcerated he was too hardheaded to realize that no good would come of it.

That is, until he was assigned to one of the least desirable prison jobs: washing dishes. That job helped turn his whole life around. It gave him access to the prison kitchen and he became fascinated watching his fellow prisoners cook for the thousands of other inmates and prison officials. Henderson learned to cook in prison. Not cocaine, but food. And his dream was born: Once outside, he would become a chef.

It was a tough, seemingly impossible journey for an ex-con. Few chefs would give him the opportunity to cook in their restaurants. And once hired, he endured racism and sabotage in the kitchen. But Henderson refused to accept rejection. Driven by a dream and an unshakable will to succeed, Chef Jeff worked hard to overcome unimaginable adversity and eventually reached the top of his profession, becoming executive chef at Café Bellagio in Las Vegas.

Alive with the energy of the streets, the sober reality of prison, and the visceral thrill of being inside the fast-paced kitchens of great restaurants, Cooked is an intense, intimate tale of crime, punishment, and redemption—a deeply poignant story of how the worst wrong can lead to the most extraordinary right.

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My Friend Leonard is the story of an extraordinary friendship formed in the most unlikely of circumstances When James Frey first meets Leonard in the rehabilitation centre so powerfully described in A Million Little Pieces they are both recovering drug addicts. Despite their highly unreliable track records their shared grit and humour sparks a mutual admiration which quickly transforms into firm loyalty. Leonard himself is charismatic and contradictory; at once a magnetic father-figure and a shady mafia boss. When he leaves rehabilitation it is to return to this dubious yet prosperous life in the criminal underworld of Las Vegas. In contrast, when James leaves the centre his world seems set to implode. Unsure where to turn, James calls Leonard and he answers. Paradoxically, it is in Leonard's lawless underworld that James discovers the courage and humanity needed to rebuild his life..
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“FREEZE IS THE COLDEST NEW AUTHOR ON THE COME-UP ”
–Nikki Turner

Love him or hate him, Arkadian “Kay” Frost has made his mark on the streets of Baltimore as the leader of a close-knit group of friends: Mike, the ladies’ man; Tank, the funny guy with a short fuse; Apache, the wild one with artillery expertise; Gee, aka Dread, a cold piece of work; and Dre, who doesn’t drink, smoke, or cheat–and trusts no one.

Bank robberies are their bread and butter. But when a heist goes wrong, Kay ends up in prison. After serving time, he’s ready to get back to his boys and start the game again. But they’ve moved on to big-time drug dealing, and Kay can’t duck its lure. The money is flowing, but when someone in Kay’s inner circle secretly betrays him, the friends divide and engage in a full-blown war. Kay wants out before more people die, and the only person he can trust now is his woman, ShuShawn, who is not only beautiful but is as street-smart as he is. Together, Kay and ShuShawn go against the grain. It seems no one can touch them . . . except perhaps the Feds, who have been watching everything..
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After serving ten years for armed robbery, Jonathan “JC” Cole is about to get out of the joint, and he has one thing on his mind: revenge against the three men—former childhood friends, now powerful crime lords—who betrayed him to save their own skins. Richard “Richkid” Kidman is a Playa with a capital P, at one time controlling a stable of twelve women. Alonzo “Zo” Johnson is one of the richest drug dealers in the Windy City. And Eugene “Lil G” Pierce ranks among the most successful con men on the East Coast.

JC feels that the time has come for him to claim what is rightfully his. His misfortune was his ex-friends’ stepping-stone, and now it is time for them to pay up—in spades. He doesn’t want to kill them, he just wants to take everything away.

He does this with the help of his woman, Champagne; his best friend, Rat; and Rat’s girlfriend, Shaunna. They form a family of sorts, with JC as the leader and Champagne as the fierce mother hen, together embarking on an exciting journey into the underworld of Chicago..
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From the bestselling author of Sleepers and former writer/producer of Law & Order comes another high-octane New York City crime drama pulsing with energy. In Lorenzo Carcaterra’s Chasers, the street-smart and highly specialized cadre of renegade NYPD cops last depicted in his acclaimed novel Apaches returns in a new tale of action and suspense.

It’s 1985, and the city that never sleeps is about to wish it had stayed in bed. The heinous machine-gun murder of innocent bystanders in a Manhattan restaurant shocks all five boroughs. The brutal slaying propels the surviving members of the Apaches–controversial, take-’em-down, outside-the-law ex-cops–into investigating a Colombian drug cartel responsible for distributing millions of kilos of cocaine on American shores.

Along for the harrowing ride with Boomer, Dead-Eye, and Reverend Jim are three new Apaches: Ash, a wounded female Hispanic cop who specializes in arson investigations; Quincy, an HIV-positive recruit who’s a forensics expert; and a retired police dog named Buttercup, a Neapolitan bullmastiff who is no ordinary animal but a gold-shield detective, highly decorated for his skills at sniffing out illegal drugs. Now this dedicated team will become Chasers, working multiple cases that will converge into one explosive, all-out street war.

They will face a gallery of formidable enemies: Quinones, a mysterious and deadly assassin; the Boiler Man, a killer as ruthless as he is cunning; Angel, a former priest turned cartel boss, determined to end his career as the richest drug baron in the world; and the G-Men, a band of dealers and doers determined to maintain their iron grip on the cocaine trade–no matter how much blood is spilled.

Fueled by Lorenzo Carcaterra’s adrenaline-rush prose and peopled with uncommon heroes and merciless crime lords tearing through city streets, Chasers proves to be this acclaimed author’s most intense novel to date..
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"Mommy! Look! That man doesn't have a hand!" Emile Barrios, a former producer at CNN, spent years running away from what he saw as the central truth of his life: that he was a second-class human being, punished by God at birth with a missing hand and foot. From hiding out from small children in the grocery store to staying numb with drugs and alcohol, Barrios sought every escape he could. Even though his Outside Me was funny, smart and charming, the shameful Inside Me was always there, waiting for someone to discover. After years of failures, wrecked relationships and crushing loneliness, he came to an astonishing realization: his real handicap was not at the end of his arm - but in his head. And until he took responsibility for his life and stopped playing the victim, nothing was going to change. An even more astonishing revelation followed: that his "unique" struggle with a handicap was something that almost everyone shares. "An engaging and heartening story, with universal appeal. If life is a big honking puzzle - and it is - Barrios reminds us that we're all born with pieces missing." - Jincy Willett, author of Winner of the National Book Award.
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The steady tick of an aged Regulator wall clock and the squeak of an overhead fan turning slowly are soft but insistent, counting down the night, while the high desert thrums like a half-remembered Victrola song. The sounds are below the consciousness of Winchell Dear, an old-time gambler, a Texas poker player on the southern circuit, as he waits for something . . . something vague that his life of chance tells him is evil and moving his way. He has gassed and oiled the Cadillac and adjusts the pistol in his right boot, then plays one of the six fiddle tunes he knows, thinking back to his good days with Lucinda Miller. Alone, he waits in his remote ranch house, while, just outside, an acquaintance named Luther hunts, unblinking and of nervous temperament and moving through yellow primrose bending in the night wind.

In Diablo Canyon, a distant part of Winchell Dear’s ranch, Peter Long Grass squats by a campfire, contemplating the profile he saw moving along the ridge of Guapa Mountain an hour ago, thinking about the gambler’s housekeeper, Sonia Dominguez, about the small, quiet world he has fashioned far from civilization and what undefined presence might now be threatening it. He gathers his tools and begins to run across the desert floor.

And boring toward all of them is a cream-colored Lincoln Continental with two men aboard. Traveling from Los Angeles on a mission they’ve been given, they are professionals, cool and implacable at the start, but becoming steadily more confused by the strange landscape they are passing through. Forty minutes from their task, they ready themselves, while a kitchen wall clock ticks its way through the long night of Winchell Dear.

The Long Night of Winchell Dear finds master storyteller Robert James Waller at his best as he takes us through the wind and dust of the high desert mountains, into the shadowy world of high-stakes poker fought in the back rooms of Amarillo and Little Rock, and headlong toward the book’s stunning finale of chaotic terror, where an unexpected hero emerges..
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