The legendary urban lit author returns with a new character, a new city, and a new series, as AUWA Books makes its first foray into fiction.

Toussaint Batiste is returning home to the City of Brotherly Love hoping he can, for once in his life, outrun his nickname: Trouble.

Toussaint has been in prison, but before that he was a Philadelphia police officer. He’s returning home with few friends on either side of the law, but with a little apartment in Chinatown and a vested interest in taking care of the family restaurant downstairs, he expects to have enough to keep himself busy.

But as ever, trouble has other ideas.

K’wan made his name publishing urban crime fiction series like Animal and Hood Rat and rose to the top ranks of the genre, creating his own literary Harlem as rich as anything out of Mario Puzo or Elmore Leonard. Now, he is teaming up with Questlove to take on a whole new territory—a whole new jawn—with Troubleman, the beginning of a brand new series that brings Philadelphia to literary life in a way that’s never been done before. Trouble.

ON SALE: June 2, 2026