Description

In this unprecedented deep dive into innercity gang life Mark Bowden takes readers inside a Baltimore gang offers an indepth portrait of its notorious leader and chronicles the 2016 FBI investigation that landed eight of its members in prisonSandtown is one of the deadliest neighborhoods in the world it earned Baltimore its nickname Bodymore Murderland and was made notorious by David Simons classic HBO series The Wire Drug deals dominate street corners and ruthless casual violence aboundsMontana Barronette grew up in the center of it all He was the leader of the gang Trained to Go or TTG and when he was finally arrested and sentenced to life in prison he had been labeled Baltimores Number One Trigger Puller Under Tanas reign TTG dominated Sandtown After a string of murders are linked to TTG each with dozens of witnesses too intimidated to testify three detectives set out to put Tana in prison for life For them this was never about drugs it was about serial murder An acclaimed journalist who spent his youth in the white suburbs of Baltimore Mark Bowden returns to the city with exclusive access to the FBI files and unprecedented insight into one of the citys deadliest gangs and its notorious leader As he traces the rise and fall of TTG Bowden uses wiretapped drug buys police interviews undercover videos text messages social media posts trial transcripts and his own ongoing conversations with Tanas family and community to create the most indepth account of an innercity gang ever writtenWith his signature precision and propulsive narrative Mark Bowden positions Tanaas a boy a gang leader a killer and now a prisonerin the context of Baltimore and America illuminating his path for what it really was a life sentence