Life Sentence

The Brief and Tragic Career of Baltimore’s Deadliest Gang Leader

By: Mark Bowden

Narrated by: L.J. Ganser

In this unprecedented deep dive into inner-city gang life, Mark Bowden takes listeners inside a Baltimore gang, offers an in-depth portrait of its notorious leader, and chronicles the 2016 FBI investigation that landed eight gang members in prison

Sandtown is one of the deadliest neighborhoods in the world; it earned Baltimore its nickname Bodymore, Murderland, and was made notorious by David Simon’s classic HBO series “The Wire.” Drug deals dominate street corners, and ruthless, casual violence abounds.

Montana Barronette grew up in the center of it all. He was the leader of the gang “Trained to Go,” or TTG, and when he was finally arrested and sentenced to life in prison, he had been nicknamed “Baltimore’s Number One Trigger Puller.” Under Tana’s reign, TTG dominated Sandtown. After a string of murders are linked to TTG, each with dozens of witnesses too intimidated to testify, three detectives set out to put Tana in prison for life. For them, this was never about drugs: It was about serial murder.

Now an acclaimed journalist who spent his youth in the white suburbs of Baltimore, Mark Bowden returns to the city with exclusive access to the FBI files and unprecedented insight into one of the city’s deadliest gangs and its notorious leader. As he traces the rise and fall of TTG, Bowden uses wiretapped drug buys, police interviews, undercover videos, text messages, social media posts, trial transcripts, and his own ongoing conversations with Tana’s family and community to create the most in-depth account of an inner-city gang ever written.

With his signature precision and propulsive narrative, Mark Bowden positions Tana–as a boy, a gang leader, a killer, and now a prisoner–in the context of Baltimore and America, illuminating his path for what it really was: a life sentence.

©2023 Mark Bowden (P)2023 Recorded Books

Losing me

I just read Doctor Dealer from the same author. I really enjoyed it. It was long which was great too.

This book spends a tremendous time on the history of Baltimore and how blacks were treated in the past when America was founded. It’s really boring. I want to hear the story - not a history lesson.

When it does get back to the story, the narrator does a horrible job of conveying the drug slang. It’s extremely awkward, and I almost feel awkward for him.

I do like the brief mentions of my favorite show, The Wire, which also takes place in “Ballmore”.

Incredible story that desperately needs to be recast with a black voice actor!

The story is fascinating, but I can't get into it. Why use a white voice actor? I understand the author is white, so the backstory and narrative would be fine as-is, but urban dialogue and use of the "N" word read by an obviously white man is... icky and a little embarrassing at worst, distracting at best.

The story

Liked the entire book, the narrator keep me interested. Much detailed, I would suggest reading the book

Loved it.

I only bought this book because I’m a huge fan of The Wire. Did not disappoint.

powerful story with good detail; did not like the reader's voice

I would have preferred a black narrator; not a white man
as a narrator. it is a black story

The sad life of impoverished Baltimore

The tedium of drugs and crime
was a bit much after a time. This was the reality of that existence.
However, in the explanation of this life only minimal verbiage was the terrible reality of absent fathers mentioned. No mention was made of successful people from South Baltimore calling out bad behavior and pointing to a better way.
All fault was placed on historical racism. Certainly , this is an issue but not everything.

Another gem is

Amazing storytelling with explicit detail and top-notch investigative reporting. The narrator did an excellent job, keeping one’s attention. 

Landsman was a crooked cop

Work with Joseph Landsman for a bit, crooked cop!!! Should have went down with the GTTF.

Good book, but needs to be re-cast.

The book is good. A really nuanced and well researched story. They should re-cast the reader though. He’s not a bad reader, but given the subject matter the choice is kind of odd. There’s a lot of dialogue between young black men and an older white guy delivering it sounds really strange. Not a deal breaker but it’s a little distracting.

Well researched

Interesting story, having worked at shock trauma ER in Baltimore over 20 years ago, not much has changed. Maybe a tactic from Bowden book “Hunting Pablo” is the way to help curb this problem. “Los Pepe’s” in conjunction with other measures may have some kind of desired outcome. But accepting poverty and violence as being symbiotic may just be the wisest overview.