The novel also introduces the reader to a pair of detectives named Benson and Ryan, who are intent on tracking down the people responsible for the murders going on in the city.
The story takes place in Detroit, where two stick-up men named Jackie and Billy break into the apartment of a drug addicted couple.
After they finish this, they end up coming across a man named Kenyatta, who runs a group of militant Blacks intent on ridding the streets of drug dealers and racist cops.
He manages to persuade the two into joining the group in order to kill a couple of racist cops as well as to hire them to perform a hit on a local drug dealer.
Death List picks up immediately after the events in Crime Partners, with detectives Benson and Ryan discovering the bodies of Jackie, Billy, and their girlfriends.
Kenyatta and the surviving members of his group manage to escape the explosion and the incoming police officers just in time to avoid both death and capture.
The final book in the series, Kenyatta's Last Hit takes place in Los Angeles a year after the events in the previous entry.
Kenyatta has managed to form a new group of activists that share his goals to clean the streets of drug dealers and crooked cops.
The Detroit detectives Benson and Ryan fly into Los Angeles after discovering that the two dead men are members of Kenyatta's group, but are paired with a crooked LA cop.
Allen expressed disappointment over Kenyatta's death, as he saw the character as a representation of Goines's "desire to overcome his addiction to drugs" and because it "suggests that good can never defeat the larger societal evils that afflict our black communities.
The film starred Ice-T, Tyrin Turner, Charli Baltimore, Snoop Dogg, and Ja Rule, with Clifton Powell playing the character of Kenyatta.