Urban Tale with Sci-Fi Theme Has Strong Safe-Sex Message, But Maintains Page-Turner Luster

Detroit, MI (BlackNews.com) - Many inner-city residents have found a way to duck the cocaine noose of the drug dealer only to be digested by the AIDS epidemic or some other sexually transmitted menace which could have been easily prevented with the use of a latex condom. So, Detroit author, E. Scrill made the warning to use protection prevalent in nearly every chapter of his debut novel, Drug Lords. Scrill uses provocative cover art with plans to lure readers from every genre' to get his message to "strap up!" "Drug Lords is far from your usual stories of guns and dope," says Scrill, who spent a year with rewrites and research with an actual biochemist to make one of the character's struggle to find a cure for the ZGP virus realistic. In the book, the Zestora virus has mutated. The new form, Zestora Gram-Positive (ZGP), is spread by the exchange of bodily fluids. It attacks the central nervous system and allows no one to live more than six months after becoming infected. A cross between New Jack City and Outbreak, the story is centered in Detroit where Mack--the protagonist--learns that most of the street bosses he planned to evict from their thrones had already been sentenced to death by their own promiscuous activities. Frequent funerals and lousy situations involving degenerate thugs with wretched underpinnings deepen Mack's dread for the funky retirement packages the streets issue. As Mack realizes he was brainwashed into the street life like legions of inner-city residents, a young woman steals his heart and shows how he can save the world as he exits the drug game a very rich man. Lester Ricks, a representative of Alliance Book Group says, "Drug Lords was fire! Scrill is trying to take the pen game to a whole new level!" New York based Alliance is one of the companies who have selected the urban publication for distribution. After doing time in a Michigan prison for guns and 20 pounds of green stuff, author E. Scrill received a 2006 parole. He scraped together enough for a 100-book print run, then began selling his debut novel, Drug Lords, in the cash-strapped streets of Detroit. He traded his inked magic for money, and in 2007 founded Street Ink Publications. Drug Lords has finally reached bookstores and is also available on line at www.streetinkbooks.com. His sophomore novel, Children of the Night, will be available winter '09! Street Ink Publications is now reviewing works by other up and coming authors.