Before We Were Wicked

February 18, 2019
Fans of Dickey’s Bad Men and Wicked Women (2018) will enjoy this equally erotic prequel. It’s L.A. in the 1990s and two loan shark enforcers, UCLA student Ken Swift and wingman Jake Ellis, are making good money hurting deadbeats. The duo is on assignment at the posh end of the Sunset Strip when Ken lays eyes on, lays claim to, and soon lays the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. Before heading to Harvard in the fall, 18-year-old Jimi Lee, aka Adanech Abeylegesse Zenebework, the sheltered daughter of wealthy Ethiopian activists, wants to sample California’s wild side. Ken can oblige. Between illuminating exchanges about black life and history in the U.S., Jimi and Ken fall in lust, then in love; they move in together and have a child. Then things change forever when the expensive needs of their daughter, Margaux, collide with the danger of Ken’s profession, the family’s only source of income. The added dimension of black history lifts this otherwise adequate erotic thriller to a whole new level.

February 15, 2019
In the tragic prequel to Bad Men and Wicked Women (2018), Dickey resets the clock to 1996, when bill collector Ken Swift goes on his first date with destiny.Her name is Adanech Abeylegesse Zenebework, but she calls herself Jimi Lee after Jimi Hendrix and Spike Lee. In this origin story, 18-year-old Jimi is staying with her privileged Ethiopian parents in Southern California as part of her gap year before she attends Harvard. Ken settles debts for a shady employer named San Bernardino, but he swears it's only until he can finish his education at UCLA. Jimi says she's 21 when she meets Ken at a club on the Sunset Strip, and although she looks down on African-American men--a topic they discuss in great detail--their one-night stand becomes an obsession that consumes them both. Together, they explore the diverse beauty of the greater Los Angeles area, from Leimert Park, the "Black Beverly Hills," to the outer suburb of Diamond Bar. They enjoy the '90s as they watch movies on a VCR, dance the Cabbage Patch, and argue over the O.J. Simpson trial. Passionate and complex, Jimi and Ken spar over social issues and end up in bed as often as Black History Month and Valentine's Day share the month of February--which is to say, all the time. Ultimately, their relationship takes a bad turn for more personal reasons--an unplanned pregnancy that derails Jimi's plans to go to college and disappoints her controlling parents. Jimi is too young for motherhood and can't quite handle the responsibility. Ken, meanwhile, proves that her assumptions about African-Americans were untrue: He marries Jimi, dotes on their baby, and works hard to support them both. But when a collection job turns dangerous, threatening their daughter's safety, even love might not be enough to keep them together. Readers jumping into the series will have the pleasure of reading the stories in chronological order. Fans will enjoy the backstory, which ends right where the first book begins.From wanton to wicked, the love-hate relationship between Dickey's characters burns with rapid-fire dialogue and plenty of steam.

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February 15, 2019
In a prequel to Dickey's Bad Men and Wicked Women (2018), readers witness mobster Ken Swift falling for Jimi Lee, the love of his life and mother of his daughter, Margaux. Ken meets Jimi at a bar, where she tells him about her plan to attend Harvard. A UCLA student who earns a living doing dirty work for mob boss San Bernadino, Ken is smitten by this smart, beautiful, and ambitious woman. Their scenes together are as full of intelligent dialogue and discussions of African history as they are of sex and love. Then Jimi becomes pregnant. Ken loves being Margaux's father, but Jimi suffers from postpartum depression and longs to return to college. She figures out a way to cut Ken out of their lives. In spite of the violence of his enforcer work, Ken is a sympathetic character, and the love story Dickey tells about two people too young to be parents is potent. Readers will want to read Bad Men and Wicked Women again after being immersed in this edgy, emotional adventure.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2019

Readers initially encountered enforcer Ken Swift in Bad Men and Wicked Women, where conflict with his daughter boils over on the same day as a big job. Here's a prequel explaining how basically decent Ken is paying his way through college with violence when he falls hard for Harvard-bound Jimi Lee, the beginning of an outsize passion that will bring their worlds clashing together. The November 2018 eshort Harlem will include a teaser.

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