The Importance of Being Dangerous [Kindle Edition]

David Dante Troutt (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set in New York City in the mid 1990s, this uneven thriller from Rutgers law professor Troutt (The Monkey Suit) delivers a somewhat murky political message. Attractive single mother Sidarra, a frustrated employee of what she's derisively renamed the Department of Miseducation, struggles to make ends meet. Her chance attendance at a Harlem investment seminar leads her into a criminal alliance with Griff, a hunky defense attorney trapped in an unhappy marriage, and computer whiz Yakoob, whose skills enable the trio to steal credit information from rich whites who they think have harmed the black community. Sidarra, an idealist who chafes at the corporate, child-unfriendly approach of her bosses, lines her pockets with few qualms. The explicit sex scenes between Sidarra and Griff do nothing to advance the plot or develop the characters, while the finale will come as no surprise.
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“There’s plenty here to quicken the pulse and even tug on our sympathies...”

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 386 KB
• Print Length: 354 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0060789301
• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books; Reprint edition (October 6, 2009)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001A16X5Y
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars strong sharp exposé of not making it in America, April 27, 2007

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Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Importance of Being Dangerous (Hardcover)

In the early 1990s, thirty something single mom Sidarra detests how the "Board of Miseducation" promotes unqualified white coworkers while ignoring her much more skillful efforts. Public Defender Griff Coleman is bone marrow tired of defending the pathetic poor in a system that simply wants to lock away his mostly black clients; however worse is the attitude of his investment banker spouse Belinda, who acts superior to him in every possible way. Computer Programmer and wannabe comedian Yakoob Jones wants to make it in a white-only power structure that prefers he quietly do his menial chores hidden in a basement.

The three of them learn of the Cicero Dean Investment Club, whose vision is to offer opportunities for humiliated middle class blacks to make money like the whites do via capital investment as a group. The three disillusioned Harlem residents invest in the company. However, they learn the truth about their investment club when drug dealer Raul joins as the Club's pyramid scheme of laundered money, stolen assets such as credit-card fraud and identity theft, and dummy corporations collapses leaving the trio feeling even more disheartened and disenfranchised.

This is an interesting look at middle class ambitions blacks who want to make it, but feels the system rejects their efforts by de facto selecting less qualified whites. When the story line swings into romance (between Sidarra and Griff), it loses much of the stinging momentum as the plot stops exposing the hypocrisy of racial prerequisite only at the higher levels of the economy in spite of decades of EEO. Still this is a strong sharp exposé of not making it in America.

Harriet Klausner