Hustling on the Down Low

By: M. T. Pope

Narrated by: Randall Bain, Morae Brehon, Daxton Dewards, Dylan Ford, John Taylor

Hustling on the Down Low is a story of two men at war for the control of the criminal activity of Baltimore and the power that comes with it. One man is a mysterious gay kingpin with an edge. The other is a straight kingpin determined to get back on top by any means necessary. There can be only one man on top. The question is, who is willing to go down the lowest to get to the top?

©2017 M. T. Pope (P)2017 Recorded Books

Loved it

I loved everything about this book. The best part was having multiple narrators instead of having one being multiple characters. Everything had a flow from beginning to end.

Amazing Book

I literally couldn’t sleep until I finished this book! It was full of mystery sex love murder suspense and everything I forgot to mention! The story and plot was on point from end to end. You’ll never guess the next steps! I throughly enjoyed this book! It’s definitely a Must read.

Excellent!!!

Loved every bit of this story from the beginning to the end. The best from Pope

An entertaining hood fantasy

Overall it's a entertaining but predictable story. The characters all use the same linguistics and could've used a bit more development. The concept was pretty cool but could have used a bit more of a twist in the plot.

Hmmm! Glaring Issues

There are some glaring issues in this book that made it hard for me to rate it highly. I was surprised—and honestly disappointed—to see an urban M/M romance mishandle topics like HIV and homosexuality so carelessly. At times, the misinformation was not only intolerable, but also impossible to ignore.

For instance, the idea that someone can be injected with “full-blown AIDS” is not only medically inaccurate but dangerously misleading. And even if the storyline meant to reflect the lived experience of one of the protagonists, the way it was presented lacked nuance, context, or compassion. We live in a world where there are highly effective treatments and preventative measures for HIV—this book never acknowledged that, which made the entire narrative feel dated and misinformed.

Maybe the intent was to add dramatic tension, but instead, it made the story fall apart. I wanted to root for the characters and their love story, but the misinformation was too loud to ignore. I’m giving this a low rating not because I didn’t see potential, but because we deserve better representation—especially in queer Black and urban-centered love stories.