This collection of six gritty tales from the underground is a tribute to the streets and those forced to try to survive them.

With tales of slick con men, revenge, a heist gone awry, and more, Robert Beck, the man many know as Iceberg Slim, brings us on a ride through the terrifying urban streets. With the same unforgettable and distinctive prose on display in his other books, Airtight Willie & Me is further evidence that Iceberg Slim was an expert at capturing the language of the streets. Always compelling, sometimes funny, and often bleak, Slim gives us six slices of city life that will leave you thirsting for more.

This is the story of Chicago’s ruthless and tireless Mafia. The intensely real characters–the brutal overlords, their faithful lackeys, and their vengeful enemies–all collide in acts of loyalty, lust, greed, and death.

Power hungry Don Jimmy Collucci is out to become the kingpin of Chicago’s “Honored Society.” His rise to the top can only be thwarted by one man–a man fueled by revenge who is hell-bent on bringing Collucci’s infamous organization down: the “Black Warrior,” Jessie Taylor. When ambitions collide, guns are drawn and blood is spilled. This gritty crime fiction tale is the original Mafia story.

Iceberg Slim, bestselling author of Pimp and Trick Baby, brings us yet another riveting classic. Continuing the saga begun in Trick Baby, Long White Con tells the story of the most incredible con man ever to have risen.

Picking up where Trick Baby left off, we dive into the world of Johnny O’Brien, better known as White Folks. After learning to use his fair skin to his advantage to rise to the top of the Chicago con game, Folks is back for the big money and the big stakes of the long con.

Following the death of his partner and mentor, Blue, Folks takes off for Canada. Having honed his skills and polished his acting, Johnny is done cheating marks out of small money. With a gang of grifters working with him–High Pockets Kate, High Ass Marvel, and the Vicksburg Kid among them–Folks is after the biggest score of his life.

Mama Black Widow tells the tragic story of Otis Tilson, a stunning black drag queen trapped in a cruel queer ghetto underworld. In hopes of escaping the racial bigotry and economic injustice of the South, Otis’ family journeys north from their plantation to an urban promised land. Once in Chicago, Otis and his siblings become prisoners to a wasteland of violence, crime, prostitution, and rape. This is the gut-wrenching tale of the destruction of a family and the truest portrayal of homosexuality in the ghetto ever told.

A blueprint. A bible. What Sun Tzu’s Art of War was to ancient China, Pimp is to the streets. As real as you can get without jumping in, this is the story of Iceberg Slim’s life as he saw, felt, tasted, and smelled it. It is a trip through hell by the one man who lived to tell the tale—the dangers of jail, addiction, and death that are still all too familiar for today’s black community. By telling the story of one man’s struggles and triumphs in an underground world, Pimp shows us the game doesn’t change; it just has a different swagger.

Only Slim could tell this story and make the reader feel it. If you thought Hustle & Flow was the true pimp story, this book is where it all began. This is the heyday of the pimp, the hard-won pride and glory, small though it may be; the beginnings of pimp before it was dragged in front of the camera, before pimp juice and pimp style. Though it is a tale of his times, it will remain current and true for as long as there is a race bias, as long as there is a street life, as long as there is exploitation.

From the multi-million copy master of vernacular black literature and pioneeer of hip hop culture, a masterpiece of crime fiction set in Los Angeles’ meanest, toughest streets. Here is the newly discovered novel by Iceberg Slim, the creator and undisputed master of African-American “street literature,” a man who profoundly influenced hip hop and rap culture and probably has sold more books than any other black American author of the twentieth century (not that he saw the royalties from those sales). In many ways Iceberg Slim’s most mature fictional work, Shetani’s Sister relates, in taut, evocative vernacular torn straight from the street corner, the deadly duel between two complex anitheroes: Sergeant Russell Rucker, an LAPD vice detective attempting to clean up street prostitution and police corruption, and Shetani (Swahili for Satan), a veteran master pimp who controls his stable of whores with violence and daily doses of heroin.

In The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim, the fierce and lyrical icon for criminal reformation describes himself as “ill…from America’s fake fa+oade of justice and democracy.” For Iceberg Slim, the illness may have been a detriment, but for us it’s a gift. His tales serve as a chilling reminder that we are all inmates of one prison or another, and the time to break free has arrived. Iceberg Slim’s story is now depicted in a major motion picture, Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp, which shows his transformation from pimp to the author of seven classic books.

Offering brutal, difficult-to-swallow tales from the underground, this book exposes the author’s inner workings in a way none of his others have, resulting in a straight-out, heartfelt confession.

As if Iceberg Slim’s charismatic words weren’t enough to evoke the essence of this time in his life–the LA underground of the 1960s–each character carries their own baggage, struggles, and influence on Slim’s vision of the world.

This is the gritty truth, the life of a hustler in South Side Chicago, where the only characters are those who con and those who get conned.

Trick Baby tells the story of White Folks, a blue-eyed, light-haired con artist whose pale skin allows him to pass in the streets as a white man. Folks is tormented early in life, rejected by other children and branded a “trick baby,” a child conceived between a hooker and her trick. Refusing to abandon his life in the ghetto and a chance at revenge, Folks is taken under the wing of an older mentor, Blue. What happens next is unbelievable.

Only Slim could bring us the story of a hustler forced to learn the game and rise to the top. It’s Slim’s story, and he tells it the only way he knows how: in the language of the streets.