Snow by Kenji Jasper

From the Publisher

From acclaimed author Kenji Jasper comes an edgy, gripping new novel that asks if family life turns a hustler soft-or just hardens his heart.

He Killed For Hate.

Life on the darker streets of D.C. can turn a clean kid grimy. Snow was one of those good kids-until a gang killed his next door neighbor and he decided to settle the score. But doing what he thought was right only plunged him deeper in a deadly game. Now he's a killer for hire, a grown man who's willing-and able-to do anything necessary to survive. But even a cold-blooded hit man has a heart.

Now He May Die For Love.

When Snow falls in love and becomes a father, he's more willing than ever to do what it takes to support his woman and his baby girl. But what that means for a hit man and what it means for a family man are two very different things. When the clash between his home life and his street life threatens to explode, Snow decides to make one last score to put his family on easy street, and get out of the game. But as much as he wants to break out, there's someone just as dangerous, and just as determined to keep Snow right where he is.

Publishers Weekly

Nicknamed for his snowflake-shaped birthmark, the title character of Jasper's taut, brutal inner-city character study is trying hard to preserve a shred of purity and decency, but the mean streets of Washington, D.C., make it a tough proposition. A murdering thief for hire, Snow manages to keep just out of reach of the cops, and of his archrival Kamau. Luscious Adele and baby Kayi are what he comes home to, and what he wants to quit for, if he can manage both to make a big enough score, and to get out of the business cleanly. Authentic and cinematically convincing details (a poker game puts "local weed and weight money, high four-figure money, in the middle") underpin Snow's inner struggle as, in flashback, he tells the story of his street education; they help move the latest from Jasper (Dakota Grand) beyond casual urban nihilism. But it's Snow's voice—at once sardonic, tough, tender and full of a bravado that can't quite hide the cold fear underneath—that propels the novel forward. (Mar.)

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