Bad Men and Wicked Women book review

Kyla Denanyoh
4 days ago
5 min read

Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do? Especially when you run into a wicked woman. What's anybody gonna do?

Hey it's Kyla Denanyoh and today, we are talking about the book Bad Men and Wicked Women. This book was written by Eric Jerome Dickey. I reviewed this book as part of Vlogmas 2022, where I reviewed one Eric Jerome Dickey novel for twelve, consecutive days. I am so proud of myself and happy to introduce new audiences to Eric Jerome Dickey. For one, he's written about 22 books, and he's also one of my favorite authors. So the genre of this book is fiction. The book's theme is African-American literature.

Let me tell you, this was the first book of the Ken Swift series. I read the book, Before They Were Wicked, before I made a book review of Bad Men and Wicked Women, even though this book was written first. Then he wrote this one and I kind of love that because I'm assuming that Eric Jerome Dickey came up with the story for Ken Swift and Jimi Lee and then because he references so much of their past he was like let me go on and write the other one right? So Before They Were Wicked is brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. But Bad Men and Wicked Women is phenomenal!

Let me share my favorite quote from the book:

Whatever he wants, he makes legal. Whatever he doesn't want he makes illegal. Let me explain.

Ken Swift is an enforcer, right? He goes after people, he enforces debts, he enforces grudges, and he enforces revenge. That's what he does: he goes after people. And Bad Men and Wicked Women is all set around 24 hours, okay? This entire book.

This is one day in Ken Swift's life. You get a couple of flashbacks one day. This man is living, okay? He is absolutely living. So that quote is so important because the people who write laws, the people who are in charge of writing things and deciding what's allowed and what's not allowed, they get to tell you whether you can do something or you can't. Of course, you can still do it, right? Ken Swift is still enforcing against people, but that's not something that we would readily say is legal.

It's not whether something that is okay, but why their conduct is considered bad because someone else does not approve or prefers better conduct from them.

We really get the juxtaposition of how Ken Swift is making a living doing what he needs to do to pay his bills and take care of his family and the person who's supposed to do it the right way and is still doing illegal stuff… but because they don't consider it illegal, so they it's fine.

You get to a point in the book where they say one of my least favorite words over and over and I'm telling you the word is written at least 300 times. I say no exaggeration and I am aware that this is how Jake Ellis and Ken Swift would speak to each other but YIKES! While reading the book, I was so surprised at how often I saw this word. Black Americans say the word to each other. White Americans say the word when discussing Black Americans. The word is used to show camaraderie and closeness; was a way of the Black American community reclaiming what was a derogatory word. And I was still shocked by reading it and when the husband was saying it so openly and comfortably.

When you read the book and consider my favorite quote, you realize that it is so important because it lets you see how arbitrary everything is not to say that laws don't matter. Rules don't matter, but it's like you jumped out walking across the street when I was trying to drive I don't want to see that anymore, so now it's illegal. Jaywalking is illegal. It's like someone took the time to write that to put on the books they did because whatever man considers that they want they can make lega;l whatever they don't want they can make illegal. One of my favorite things about Eric Jerome Dickey is the level of storytelling. Bad Men and Wicked Women, you know that Ken Swift and Jake Ellis are enforcing for San Bernardino. You don't find out who San Bernardino is until towards the end of the book.

So to add more complexity, I like to read Before They Were Wicked before I read Bad Men and Wicked Women because although they were published out of order, Before We Were Wicked is the prequel. You’re reading this after November 2025, which means you can read the books in order, too, and be shocked and fascinated at how much Ken, Jake, and San Bernardino change in a decade. Also (this is where I show my superfan-ness, I have read everything by Eric Jerome Dickey and can tell you how the character tree is laid out.

Let me tell you. San Bernardino is the child of one of the characters in a prior book called Thieves In Paradise, which was written 2002. Bad Men and Wicked Women was published in 2018. The continuity of storytelling and characters and how you see one character in another book, is brilliant. It is absolutely brilliant and it is by far one of my favorite things about Eric Jerome Dickey, because if you own all the books like I do and you read them in order, there are so many little Easter eggs and so many tales and you're just like, they were in that book, they were in that book.

It's really, really cool. If you are a true fan of Eric Jerome Dickey's writing and you have read multiple books of his, you will see characters show up all the time. He has a lot of themes that show up in every book and I absolutely love it. So would I reread this book? Yes, this was my second time reading this one book. I've read Before We Were Wicked about three times because I really like seeing the characters back when they were first introduced. Bad Men and Wicked Women is about 18 years after we saw Ken Swift and Jimi Lee, and it is very very compelling.