Split Decision : Life Stories

Award-winning actor, rapper, and producer Ice-T unveils a compelling memoir of his early life robbing jewelry stores until he found fame and fortune -- while a handful of bad choices sent his former crime partner down an incredibly different path.

Ice-T rose to fame in the late 1980s, earning acclaim for his music before going on to enthrall television audiences as Odafin "Fin" Tutuola in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. But it could have gone much differently.

In this "poignant and powerful" (Library Journal, starred review) memoir, Ice-T and Spike, his former crime partner -- collaborating with New York Times bestselling author Douglas Century -- relate the shocking stories of their shared pasts, and how just a handful of decisions led to their incredibly different lives. Both grew up in violent, gang-controlled Los Angeles neighborhoods and worked together to orchestrate a series of jewelry heists.

But while Ice-T was discovered rapping in a club and got his first record deal, Spike was caught for a jewelry robbery and did three years in prison. As his music career began to take off, Ice made the decision to abandon the criminal life; Spike continued to plan increasingly ingenious and risky jewel heists. And in 1992, after one of Spikes robberies ended tragically, he was sentenced to thirty-five years to life. While he sat behind bars, he watched his former partner rise to fame in music, movies, and television.