Monday evening comn' down—the dreariest day of the week anywhere, but especially in the ghettos (yea, y'all, they still there) where people have taken their hangovers and other symptoms of a fast weekend to their individual plantations around town (if they're lucky enough to have one) return to their shacks for four/five more days of clock punching and locksteppin' before the Eagle flies. Then was then and now is now. What's the difference?

There was no sharper con man on the streets of Chicago than Elijah Brookes. Women were his preferred prey—but no mark and no bankroll was safe when Elijah was on the prowl. Cool, beautiful Toni warned him, "Elijah, brothers be playin' games so hard sometimes they don't know when to stop. You know what I'm sayin'?" Elijah Brookes had to learn the ultimate lesson the hard way. So many games to be played, so little time.

Midnight offers us a sensitive view inside the soul of a young African American gangster who is influenced by an older man, a convict, to look into his African side. "You may not be what they've told you that you are, over here. When you check out where we came from."