Book excerpt: During Birminghams Civil Rights era, with racism and crime battling for prominence, pimp Blake McDaniel managed his business with brutal efficiency. Trapped in an endless downward cycle, McDaniels is confronted by the sins of his past sins that are visited on his son. Torn between two father figures and his mothers persistent dream, Tyson McDaniels struggles to make the right choices. His father is a drug addicted Vietnam veteran who transforms his racial anguish into living the life of a ruthless pimp. His stepfather, Vincent Big Vince Johnson, is a street-life late bloomer, a man who traded his assembly line job at Detroits General Motors for a roll of the street life dice. Lillian, his embittered mother, is caught between two vicious pimpsone she loves and one she hates. She is plunged into the very life she rejectedprostitution, drugs, and the need to escape a past of brutal racial hatred and a romantic disappointment too deep to forget. Trapped in Pandoras Last Box explodes with deadly consequencesthe inevitable clash between Blake and his bitter rivals, Big Dester and Death Wish, Blakes imminent encounter with death and destruction, and the implications of his actions for the future of his son.