Kindle Edition Amazon The Street Life Series Books-a-million Powell's Books Category:  Mystery/Suspense Publisher: Xlibris Corporation ISBN-10:  144156621X Type: Fiction Pages: 369 Copyright: October 2010 ISBN-13: 9781441566218 Price: $999.00 (eBook) For those determined to succeed despite the odds, is it rags or riches? As Washington, D.C.’s quick-witted Detective Hanae Troop crosses over the Georgia state line into historical Civil War territory, she must determine what new game the delusional serial killer, The Paradox, is now playing.  Not wanting her assistance, Atlanta Detective Paul Yeomans must come to terms with Detective Troop helping him protect the south’s “Phoenix City.” Even though the Washington D.C. tabloids surmise that Teco Jackson was slain by The Paradox, the Feds are anxious to prove that Teco is still alive.  Feeling double-crossed, The Paradox elevates his deadly game to a new level by sabotaging anyone who has started a new life by leaving the Strictly Business (SB) drug crew.  For those determined to succeed despite the odds, is it rags or riches? Excerpt “Even when winning is illogical, losing is still far from optional.” -- Clifford Harris, recording artist, producer and actor

The USA Book Review
Picasso's famous dictum that art is a lie that tells the truth can also describe fiction writing. Such truths are not always easily discernible. The mystery and illusion in cubist and other masterpieces is essential to their power. Rags or Riches is also formed with fractured perspective and shifting identity. Essentially urban, the novel combines no less than three major metropolitan areas. Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Atlanta law enforcement must band together to wage literal war on a former special-forces operative lost in his own private world of cold-blooded murder and mayhem. Yet his vendetta is motivated by a skewed sense of justice. A detective who successfully solves crimes with six-sided dice and a villain who plots his destruction by treating the city of Atlanta like a chessboard are just some of the puzzles and games that make up this scenario of puppets and string-pullers.

Contradiction, ambiguity, and enigma permeate the narrative and characters. Twin sisters on opposite sides of the drug trade. Or are they? Two brothers, one doing hard time for ten years for a murder he didn't commit; the other a hard-bitten drug lord intent on dominating the drug trade in greater metropolitan Atlanta—a free man. Then there is Atlanta itself, where the story is set. Burned by Sherman in the Civil War because of its function as a munitions depot for the railroad system of the Confederacy, it is now one of the most multicultural cities in America, with one of the largest and wealthiest African American communities in the country. The author shows his love and admiration for the city while painting a gritty and realistic picture of the power of drugs and the pull of the street life. Possibilities of redemption and renewal emerge against an aggressive background of entrapment and menace. Plenty of action and plot twists make this third novel in the Street Life series a page-turner that is both ultra-modern and unique.

Library Journal - Word on the Street
The Paradox, a psychotic killer who leaves G-strings on his victims’ bodies, returns in the latest in Weeks’s self-published, award-winning “Street Life” series (after Is It Suicide or Murder? and Is It Passion or Revenge?). The murderer has moved from DC to Atlanta and is executing members of the Pennsylvanian SB (Strictly Business) crew. He sets his sights on GQ (Gail Que), who is living the rags or riches challenge to make it big in the fashion industry. Hot on The Paradox’s trail is Hanae Troop, a DC cop determined to bring him down. Troop’s lover, Teco Jackson, is a former member of SB and will fight to the death for her man.
Verdict Weeks’s combination of mystery and police procedural will draw in readers as he shows the cops’ point of view. The long list of characters and plot tangents may be confusing, but bloody executions and a wild, climatic shoot-out will hold interest. Think of CBS’s 48 Hours Mystery set to a street lit riff. [At the African American Pavilion at BookExpo 2009, Weeks’s books won the Urban Series of the Year Award.—Ed.]

Midwest Book Review - Well worth considering
Some people treat murder as a game, and they take their game seriously. "The Street Life Series: Is it Rags or Riches" is a mystery following Washington D.C. Detective Hanae Troop and Atlanta's Detective Paul Yeomans as they try to find the truth behind the man who is only known by the pseudonym the Paradox. The Paradox and his riddles challenge the detectives as they deal with street gangs, tabloids, and even the very people they work for in trying to find the elusive truth. For mystery lovers, "The Street Life Series" is well worth considering.