The criminals Mark Baker has interviewed for this book talk candidly about how they started on a life of crime, what their lives are like day-to-day (they talk, for example, about the mechanics of money laundering, planning a robbery, manufacturing fake drugs, and so forth), and the often brutal rituals of life in prison, where most career criminals eventually find themselves.

"Bad Guys" is gritty, compelling, and inimitably authentic. These are stories that take us inside a shadowy world that surrounds us, day and night, but which we seldom see until the terrifying moments that we become crime victims ourselves.