Books › My life with a criminal
My life with a criminal
148 pages
A raw, adrenaline-fueled descent into a gritty criminal underworld that reads with the breathless intensity of a high-stakes thriller.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like sitting in a dimly lit room listening to a seasoned survivor confess their darkest, most thrilling secrets. The narrative moves at a propulsive, breakneck speed, fueled by the raw adrenaline of a life lived entirely on the edge. Stripped of literary pretense, the prose is unvarnished and conversational, pulling you directly into the gritty, dangerous atmosphere of 1970s Kenya. It is a tense, immersive experience that balances the intoxicating allure of rebellion with the crushing, claustrophobic reality of being hunted by the law. Fans of unflinching true crime and visceral, street-level memoirs will be captivated by its unapologetic honesty and the sheer, breathless momentum of a life spiraling out of control.
- Mood
- adrenaline-fueled
- tense
- dangerous
- claustrophobic
- Tone
- raw
- candid
- unapologetic
- gritty
- reflective
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- the allure of the underworld · survival and desperation · loss of innocence · consequences of rebellion · redemption
- The writing
- Unvarnished, direct, and highly conversational, stripping away literary pretense to deliver a visceral street-level experience.
- The arc
- Moves from the intoxicating, reckless thrill of youthful rebellion to a sobering, high-stakes struggle for survival and eventual reckoning.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave authentic, fast-paced true crime memoirs that offer an unfiltered glimpse into a dangerous underworld.
Content notes
- gun violence
- incarceration
- police brutality
- criminal activities
About the book
The late 1690 and early 70s may be remembered as the years of the great bank and other armed robberies in Kenya. This is the true story of one of the participants in some of those robberies, John Kiriamiti. In raw and candid language, Kiriamiti tells the story of how he dropped out of secondary school when he was only fifteen years old, and for a time became a novice pickpocket, before graduating into crimes like car-breaking and ultimately into violent robbery. This spell-binding story takes the reader into the underworld of crime, and it depicts graphically the criminal s struggle for survival against the forces of law. John Kiriamiti was imprisoned on 6 January 1971, after being convicted on a charge of committing robbery at Naivasha on 4 November 1970. Kiriamiti left Naivasha Maximum Security Prison in August 1984, just five months after the publication of this novel and those following which were a sensation with Kenyan youth in the late 1980s and '90s.
Description from Open Library.
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