With the possible exception of the early- and mid-'70s blaxploitation films, few cultural movements have had as profound an impact on hip-hop as the gritty black crime novels of writers like Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines. But, with the exception of works by Kane & Abel and Pras, black pulp fiction has been a sorely understaffed genre in recent years, a fact that the enterprising Wesley Snipes would like to change with a series of novels released through his (S) Affiliated publishing company. The first novel in the series is the work of veteran music journalist Ronin Ro, whose book on the rise and fall of Death Row Records (Have Gun, Will Travel) provides the definitive take on the subject. Ro's maiden foray into fiction, Street Sweeper, features a protagonist readily identifiable from the world of neo-blaxploitation films and gangsta rap: a Versace-clad, Dom-drinking hitman with a flair for brutally effective violence. For its first 40 pages or so, Street Sweeper attempts to integrate hip-hop into its narrative in the most irritating and distracting way possible: by having random rappers show up every few pages for wordless cameos. No matter where the protagonist may go, or what he does, there always seems to be a member of Mobb Deep or Mack 10 or Guru waiting to give him mad props for being such a down brother. It's an obnoxious ploy, as is Ro's clumsy employment of hip-hop slang, but without it, Street Sweeper is little more than the literary equivalent of a bad direct-to-video thriller, complete with a stone-faced protagonist, coincidence-driven plot, and clueless "borrowing" from the work of John Woo. By the time the hero is getting ready to kill the employer of the mysterious woman he was supposed to kill, but instead fell in love with (not to mention her doe-eyed crippled daughter), Street Sweeper has become ridiculous even by the lenient standards of pulp fiction. Bringing back the black crime novel is a worthy goal, but with Street Sweeper, Snipes and (S) Affiliated have gotten off to an inauspicious start.